The classics every bag collection needs (and it’s not as many as you think)
Given the economic importance of bags in fashion, it’s notable how several of the industry’s most prominent women disdain them. Carine Roitfeld famously never carries one (“they ruin the silhouette” is her general view). Anna Wintour rarely does, but will occasionally succumb to a dainty clutch. Diana Vreeland, the extraordinary one-time editor of American Vogue (and later, of Harper’s Bazaar) who like Rome, seems to be a destination towards which all roads (the fashion ones anyway) head, wasn’t much of a fan either.
As a new book on bags by Carolyn Asome relates, Mrs V preferred pockets. If they were good enough for men… The entire industry rose as one when she went public on this, blanching at the prospect of millions of obedient readers crossing bags off their shopping list, and hastily pointed out that women carried more about their person than males. Bulging pockets were hardly a desirable silhouette, whereas a carefully considered, crafted bag could be a punctuation mark and heirloom.
But just as a monogrammed bag from one of the big luxury brands represents a status symbol for most women, for an elite at the top of the fashion tree, showered with prestige freebies, renouncing the bag illustrates another kind of status: one that advertises a woman’s supreme discernment and her ability to say no (“elegance is refusal” Vreeland famously pronounced), as well as her good fortune in having a driver and a car.
I’ve seen totes stuffed with laptops, sunglasses, make up, water bottles and changes of clothing on the back seat of cars from which streamlined, bag-free women have stepped. Behind every great woman is a roomy holdall.
I’ve also seen Anna Wintour disembark a plane with the teeniest of pocket books – and a man at her side carrying her bag. I’m no champion of the oversized bag – deep pits of despair in which no one can ever find anything – and talk about inelegant. But I’ve always run into trouble when I’ve gone completely bagless, leaving purse, phone and keys all over the place.
For me, a smallish bucket or gold-chained shoulder bag is ideal, but I try not to be too tempted. A bag is such an easy way to treat yourself without committing to an actual outfit that many women end up with an unhelpful glut.
What does Asome keep in her bag repertoire? Surprisingly little for someone who’s been sent her share of bags to test, since she believes there are very few designs that are true classics: Chanel’s 2.55, which she bought in grey leather a decade ago and still uses is one. Another is her laser cut Alaïa, “which never seems to date, but there are lots of great lightweight ones around now, like Mansur Gavriel’s”.
She has a top-handled bag for Grown Up Moments (Anya Hindmarch’s Ebury) and for more frivolous expeditions, loves a minaudière – not just at night but on days when she’s travelling extra light. Hers is a diminutive, but chunky Jimmy Choo, because it combines practicality with pink silk – quite the coup. And now she thinks about it, there’s the raffia Chanel she bought in 2006 (small, 2.55-esque). “I take it out every summer and sometimes in the winter too. I think every bag collection is improved with a little raffia. In fact anything that seems a bit bonkers or eccentric – Anya Hindmarch’s crisp packet bag or Moschino’s Mcdonald’s drink carton – are often the ones you end up going back to over and over again because they transform a classic look.”
Anything else? “I’m hankering for the Hermès Plume, but that’s a long way off. “Gosh,” she muses, “have I been too monastic? Actually I don’t use bags much – most of the time I carry a canvas shopper. I hate the way everything’s filled with logos and so obvious.”
Vogue Essentials: Handbags by Carolyn Asome and Vogue
Essentials: Little Black Dress by Chloe Fox are published by Conran Octopus (£15)