The Cuteness Of Chloe
Of all the beautiful purses in Chloe’s collection, I bet this is the one you recognise immediately. Right? Like the brown canvas style for Vuitton, or Le Dix for Balenciaga, it’s the coolest girl in the clique, the cream of the crop, the signature piece.
The reason this purse has such a following is evident. Just <i>look</i> at it. Have you ever seen cuter? Gorgeous leather and detailing, plus those four little brass feet for protection, plus that famous Chloe padlock… it’s the perfect size for daytime, just about big enough to hold your stuff without being cumbersome.
The leather is delicious — soft soft soft and it will still be looking lovely years down the line… I have to admit, I actually prefer it to the Le Dix ever so slighty, simply because there aren’t any tassels to worry about.
It’s very unique, very cuddly, very sexy, and very very hard to get hold of (like this red one here). It’s also available with a shoulder strap, if hip-bumping is your style.
Forget kids or pets to love — the Paddington bag is all you need!
Kiss Me, Kate!
Ohhh, Kate Spade.
Kate Spade, Kate Spade, Kate Spade.
If I had the chance to follow any designer in the world around for a week, I would choose Kate — and then I probably wouldn’t even be able to ask her any questions, just watch in awe as she does her thing.
See as much as I love frilly, sparkly, differentish purses, there’s something about the perfect <i>simple</i> bag — well made, classic, elegant — that gets me every time. Problem is it can be extremely hard to find a clean, quiet purse that isn’t boring — and that’s where Kate Spade steps in. Her purses are coveted world-wide for their style and beauty, a style and beauty that is heightened by the restraint showed in the creation.
Because she rose so quickly (one of those glorious literal rags-to-riches stories I adore) and because of the neverending demand for her product, she has room to manoevre, to try different things, to experiment. This is all well and good, but what I love is that she hasn’t neglected the signature style that made her famous in the first place: affordable, sexy little purses and bags.
The purse pictured is the L’Orient Ariane (yes, named after the beach), a pink-and-gold leather purse in the larabee pattern (if you squint you can just about see it in the picture). It’s available in a variety of different colours, another Kate Spade touch that I, as well as other fickle colour-fans, truly appreciate.
Gorgeous x infinity, let’s hear it for Kate… <3
La Reine Margot
Maybe by the time you read this post, the purse pictured here will either be a)sold out or b) near-impossible to get hold of.
I say this simply because it seems to be the case with every other Veneta bag — they become exclusive so fast that by the time you’ve registered it, it’s far too late. And I am well aware of how often it’s done deliberately — and Veneta can get away with it.
In fact, if they created just ten purses a year and refused to sell them to anyone but blonde-haired brown-eyed twenty-six year olds, all anyone would say is, "Oh, it’s a Veneta bag? Well that figures."
God bless them. This purse pictured here is an intraciatto leather purse with floral applique and a lovely leather chain handle. It’s a relatively small little purse with blue lining and flowers. The design is straight out of an Edwardian catalogue, feminine and graceful with a very modern twist due to the layering. Perfect for that whole soft, frilly late Victorian/early Edwardian look that is all over the runway and shops this season.
It’s just a beautiful, unique little piece with every standard you would hold Veneta to, surpassed — quite frankly, fit for a queen.
Now quick, go get one before something crazy happens…
Scarlet Fever
Are Versace doing well this year or not? I read so many conflicting articles about Donatella vs Gianni and old vs new that I am never sure if the company is on the verge of collapse or doing better than they ever have.
It’s hard to believe they can be troubled when you look at their output — like this purse. It’s a red jacquard monogram bag, in the Biker Bag style. Now, the biker bag thing has been done by so many different companies that I’m amazed there is a fresh way to look at it, but it turns out that there is. This colour of red is something I would expect to see from Ferragamo; it’s quite a nice surprise to see Versace being so bold. It’s a beautifully designed and almost painfully stylish purse, worthy of every rich tanned Italian madam worth her fashion salt.
Versace, if this is you doing badly, I’d love to see you on top of your game.
Molto bello!
Just Peachy
You may have gathered by now that ArmCandyGirl is something of a sucker for a pretty face. You shouldn’t find it terribly surprising then that I introduce you to Botkier’s Clyde bag simply on the basis of it looking <i>so</i> very pretty.
Oh, there is other stuff <i>of course</i> — like the lush cowhide leather, or the lovely little pockets everywhere, the cool slouchy boho style, that lovely salmony pinky peachy colour (also available in jet-black)… I could go on and on, but really, you already know its a beautifully made accessory. You already know the quality is superb and it’s a worthy investment. You already know that it will last forever…
So, let’s just cut all that other stuff out and be gloriously superficial for this post… altogether now:
Ahhhh… so pretty!
Tally-Ho
Winter’s here girls, and that means it’s time for the hats, gloves and scarves to come out.
It also means that it’s time to go for some warmer colours, and that is precisely why this gorgeous bag from Chloe caught my eye.
Rich mulberry red leather with a big strap and canvas lining, with really, really cute brass buckles — in fact the front dock clip there was actually custom-designed and made for Chloe.
The style of the bag itself is the rather unique Ascot saddlebag (much easier to see when the front strap is fully extended). It’s a beautifully made purse, perfect for daytime and perfect for winter.
Cold weather and leather saddlebags — does it get any more charmingly English…?
Gym Pretty
We’re so busy, us girls today. Rush rush rush from once place to the next, from work to the gym and from the gym to the shops. Well, with all that rushing, it makes life harder to have to keep making pit stops home to change your clothes or grab your gym crap.
That’s where the Coach Tote comes it.
Now, I am not for one moment insinuating that you take a cavalier approach to bag-maintenance — after all, these things cost a pretty penny. It would be nonsensical to be rough with them. But that’s the beauty of tote bags, you can put them through the wringer and they still come out looking damn good.
This pretty beaded tote is from Coach — it comes in a variety of different colors, plus there is a large range of lovely non-beaded totes too. It’s suede and metal, with plenty of inside pockets to keep all your bits and pieces separate (we all have those my-phone-is-ringing-loudly-and-obnoxiously-but-I-can’t-find-it moments).
Practical <i>and</i> pretty — you have to admit that ArmCandy’s recent purse selections have been pretty damn special.
Vroom Vroom, Baby
Every once in a while I like to step back from all the Balenciaga, Hermes and Asprey purses to have a look at something new, something unusual. It was during a recent foray into the Purse Unknown that I came across something rather fabulous: a website by the name of Everythingcarz.com.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Cars? Purses? What unholy alliance is this? But wait. For there ARE purses on sale on the site — purses that are made from recycled materials. And when I say recycled materials I mean <i>used inner tubes from trucks and tractors</i>.
That’s right. All those old tubes clogging up landfills and coastlines across the land, all that rubber once involved in endless miles of tarmac, taking tomatoes from one end of the country to another, keeping those truckers secure on the road — they are being rescued and made over for the greatest cause of them all — the cause of fashion.
Every single bag is hand-made with leather and nickel, in a variety of fun colours. The purse pictured here goes by the name of the Dax Bag — and the more I look at it, the more I like it.
So for all you manly men out there who think purses are for <i>girls</i>, think again — you can be a dirty, filthy, oil stained hunk of man with your big black truck and ice-cold beer while <i>still</i> having somewhere to keep your crap.
Plus you’ll be helping the environment — does it get any sexier than that?
I think not.
London Calling
My admiration for the ladies and gentlemen at Asprey grows by the day.
In an age where even Molten Brown has been bought out by a Japanese company and Burberry-wearers have been <i>banned</i> from certain pubs for being affiliated with British thug-youth-twat, Asprey flies the flag for good old fashioned English manners, class, and style.
Let’s focus on the English Lady today. Just imagine her, in the autumn of her years, perhaps a grandmother by now. She will have hit the prime of her youth in the swinging sixties, a time when London was the place everyone wanted to be. She probably wore bright funky red minidresses and platform boots, and no doubt swinging from her arm was a lovely red leather purse that dad got her for her twenty-first birthday.
Fast-forward forty years and the same woman is walking out of Asprey’s with a lovely red coat and the same purse triumphantly on her arm — only this time it’s the real thing: stunning alligator skin in a vibrant pillar-box red, exquisitely designed and crafted – much like the Lady herself. Perhaps a gift from herself to herself in honour of growing up to be so fabulous, perhaps a birthday or anniversary treat…
Yes, some things are <i>definitely</i> worth waiting for.
Shabby Chic
There’s something about a Celine purse that makes me smile. Maybe it’s because near enough every French woman I know owns one, or aspires to own one. Maybe it’s because there is something charmingly Gallic in their design — that whole continental swagger hidden in refined style and snobbery. Or maybe it’s because there is a certain level of quality that can’t be masked by any amount of faux slum prudery — and Celine will always be decadence, no matter how much they experiment.
Take this leather messenger bag. The whole style is meant to look slightly worn, slightly old, very young and grungy. But then the handle! The silver! The leather! It is still a beautiful little purse, which proves that beauty sometimes goes beyond experimental design and vision to showcase itself in gorgeous materials and loving craftsmanship.
How terribly French to try to downplay wealth and luxury with a purse like this. Revolutionary, indeed.
