I Guessed A Stranger's Handbag Cost $200. It Was $69.95.
I Guessed A Stranger's Handbag Cost $200. She Laughed. It Was $69.95.
Forty-odd years of carrying a handbag every single day, and I'd never given one a proper thought. Apparently I had opinions all along.
Let me get this out of the way first: I don't care much about handbags. I've never saved up for a designer one, and nobody has ever handed me one wrapped in tissue paper. Over my adult life I've gone through eight or nine of them, and every single one was a panic purchase on the day the previous one gave up.
Looking back, every one of them failed for the same two reasons.
There's the structured kind. It looks smart sitting on a chair, it's heavy before you've put a thing in it, and its handles won't reach over your shoulder once you've got a jacket on. So it hangs off your forearm, and by the time I'd been to the bank and the chemist my whole arm ached.
Then there's the slouchy kind. It weighs nothing and sits on your shoulder nicely, but set it down and it collapses, and your purse, keys and phone end up in a heap at the bottom. I've spent years rummaging up to my elbow while the person behind the counter waits.
I'd honestly accepted that a handbag was either good-looking and a dead weight, or comfortable and a mess.
Then I Got Nosy At A Café In Crows Nest
On Thursdays a few of us walk a loop around Crows Nest and finish at the same café, because we always have. A couple of weeks back a lady one table over had parked her bag on the chair beside her pot of tea, and I couldn't stop looking at it. Caramel, soft-looking, yet sitting perfectly upright, with a wide strap woven in teal and gold, the sort of detail you'd expect on something far dearer.
At 63 I've given up pretending I'm not curious. I leaned over, told her it was a beautiful bag, and said I'd guess it cost her about two hundred dollars.
She laughed so loudly the table behind us turned round. Sixty-nine ninety-five, she said, and she knew the exact figure because people kept asking her. The bag was the Isla, from an Australian shop, Eleanor & Co Australia, and she carries it every day.
My own was on order before I'd finished my scone, tapped in right there on my phone, which isn't like me at all. Ask my husband: I spent most of a month deciding on an ironing board.
I'll be honest about how I opened it. At that price I was braced for that sharp chemical smell cheap bags give off, the one that fills the whole car. I stuck my nose right in (I wasn't going to be fooled) and it smelled of nothing at all. I emptied my old bag into it there on the bed, and the old one went to the back of the wardrobe that afternoon and hasn't come out.
That was about a month ago. Here's what using it every day has taught me.
Six Things I'd Tell You About It
One. It doesn't look like $69.95. I'll say this plainly, because the shop does too: it's vegan leather, not real leather. I couldn't have told you. The grain looks genuine, the finish is soft and a little worn-in, like a bag someone has looked after for years, and the seams are neat and even from one end to the other. Three people so far have guessed it cost a lot more. I've let every one of them.
Two. A wide strap makes all the difference. Every shoulder bag I've owned had a strap barely wider than a shoelace, and by mid-afternoon it had cut a line into my shoulder. This one is a generous woven band that shares the load across your shoulder instead of digging in. There's a brass buckle to adjust it, and at its longest I wear it cross-body on our walks, hands free. Brass hooks at each end clip it to the bag, so it isn't stitched on.
Three. It zips closed, right across. No magnet that pops open when you brush past something, and no open top with a flap pretending to keep things in. It's a proper zip across the full width. If your bag has ever tipped over in the footwell of the car and sent your coins under the seats, you'll understand why this made the list.
Four. You can see inside it. I didn't know I cared about this until I had one. My other bags were all black inside, and finding my keys in them was like looking for something in a coal bin. The Isla's lining is a light stone shade, so the moment it's open, everything is visible. One side has a zip pocket for the things I can't afford to lose; the other has slip pockets where my phone and glasses live. A month in, I haven't once had to tip it out on a counter.
Five. It stays upright, empty or full. This is the part that settles the stiff-versus-floppy argument. It's soft and doesn't weigh you down, but it holds its shape. Set it on the passenger seat, a café chair or the floor at bowls and it stays standing, open and ready. Nothing slides into a heap. Half-empty or stuffed for a day out, it looks exactly the same.
Six. The colour works with everything I wear. I went back and forth on this one. I've bought black my whole life because black is supposed to match anything (and it does), but I'd started to feel as if I was dressed for a job interview every day of the week. The caramel works with my navy jacket, my green raincoat, jeans and the good dress I keep for weddings. It's also a warm colour to have beside you on a grey winter's day, and Toowoomba gets more of those than people think.
What About The Price?
It's $69.95 at the moment, marked down from $174.95. The low price actually worried me more than it reassured me. I've owned cheap bags before: handles that start peeling within months, “gold” fittings that go dull and brassy, and linings that come unstitched so your pen disappears into the side for good.
What I can tell you is how it's held up after a month of carrying it every day: you'd struggle to tell it from new. The brass hasn't dulled, the strap ends are still tidy at the hooks, and nothing has cracked where it folds. It's rated 4.7 out of 5 based on 935 reviews, and I went through a good number of them first, to check I hadn't just been lucky. The same things kept coming up: the size, a strap that stays comfortable all day, and people saying it looks dearer than it was.
“I expected it to be nice for the price, but it actually looks very smart in person. The stitching is neat and the hardware doesn't have that overly shiny cheap look some bags have.” (Karen T.)
So I Ordered A Second One In Black
Yes, I know, after all that grumbling. But come June my black wool coat comes out of storage, and there are a few occasions where caramel doesn't feel quite right. At this price the sums were easy: two of these still came to less than the leather bag I bought years ago and regretted within the year. If I'd ordered both at once, the checkout would have taken a percentage off, because it does that automatically when you buy more than one. Learn from me.
There are four colours, caramel, black, green and cream, and every one has the teal and gold strap. My sister-in-law borrowed mine for a lunch and sent me a photo of her own green one the following week.
If You Were Sitting Across From Me
Most of us put up with a handbag that's slightly wrong for years, because it's never bad enough on any one day to bother replacing. If that sounds like you, this is a small price to stop putting up with it.
And skip the “practical” colour if a different one makes you smile. It'll be sitting next to your cup of tea most days, so you may as well enjoy looking at it.
One last thing: when someone at the next table asks about it (and they will), make them guess the price before you tell them. Watching their face is half the fun.
I don't keep it for special occasions. It's simply the first bag I've had that's right for an ordinary Tuesday, and it turns out that's much harder to find.
Robyn
Isla – Vintage Bag
- Soft vegan leather, finished to look gently aged
- Broad woven strap in teal and gold; adjust it for shoulder or cross-body wear
- Zips closed across the full top
- Pale lining, one zip pocket plus open pockets
- Stands up on its own, empty or packed
- 31.5 cm across the top, 25.5 cm high, 10 cm deep
- Four colours: caramel, black, green, cream
- Free Australia-wide shipping