Posted by Fashion Editor at Large
As a handbag fan, I look back on my little cupboard that represents the last ten years of handbag history and see an era encapsulated. The noughties were a time of big, ostentatiously designed and very quirky handbags. These receptacles represent the modern womans' predicament - out and about away from home operating with what she can carry to achieve her aims. Throughout the noughties that was a lot of kit.
While on my Greek holiday just now I was asked by a masseuse (and not for the first time) whether I had scoliosis. I DO NOT. What I do have is an over-developed right shoulder from carrying large designer bags with lots of stuff in for a decade, and an underdeveloped left shoulder that won't take the weight of a bag comfortably.
When Arete the amazing woman who realigned my back on holiday had finished with me, I vowed never to carry a heavy handbag again, which lead me straight back into the imaginary clutch of the handbag I haven't been able to get out of my head since I first clapped eyes on it. Yes, I am talking about the Celine Classic bag again!
Without wishing to over do the "Phoebe Philo is a genius" blather that has taken over as the default line of thought for every fashion writer and blogger in the western world, Phoebe Philo has pulled off something approaching genius with this bag.
More Tommy Tom
With the Classic she has stripped the fashion handbag back to its purest form and created a perfectly formed and useful design classic, that I, among many, many people, can't wait to wear for the rest of my days.
The many combinations of colour, leather and skin means that each new owner feels she is getting something tailored to her taste.
Crucially, the dimensions of the bag are the thing that mark it out as something new. It is small, the dimensions are 19cm high, 23.5 cms across and 6.5 cm deep, but it is large enough to hold a notebook and diary, wallet, two smartphones and essential make-up items. This is a bag for an organised woman who can reduce! The Hermes Constance bag (below) is even smaller.
Hermes "Constance" bag
My gripe with the Classic is that it is just too small for an iPad. Can you make a bigger one please? You only need to go up by a few centimenters in height and width to fit it in, and then it really will be genius.
A selection of colours of the Classic
Hopefully I be treating myself to one of these if the next couple of months are good on the work front. What I won't be able to do is win one. BUT one lucky person, hopefully one of you, will, and all thanks to me!
I've started working as a consultant on what promises to be an amazing new e-tail website that launches in October. When they asked me what handbag to recommend for an elegant little teaser campaign they are doing to introduce the site, there was no hesitation. With stealth planning and a well timed swoop on Celine in Paris I managed to get hold of not only a new-season Classic, but one in the most in-demand colour, geranium red - i.e a little lighter than the one at the top of this blogpost.
In fact, I handed it over to them today, and when it left my possesion to be photographed, there was a pang of loss. Look back here NEXT WEDNESDAY for more news on how this £2,200 little beauty can be yours.
All summer I have been imagining my head on top of these bodies
Photos:
Celine Resort Lookbook
JakandJil.com
Celine.com
Posts
