Custom Design

I kind of love the Marc Jacobs Fluorescent Tweed Bag, although I kind of wish I didn’t.

What exactly do I find so charming about it? What is there to find charming about a tweed bag with some random, oddly colored gemstones stuck to it? I’m not sure, but as usual, I’m buying whatever it is that Marc Jacobs is selling.

I’m not sure what place wit has in fashion, but I can’t help find this bag (along with the birdcage bag that Shannon wrote about last week) incredibly witty and irreverent. They both made me smile immediately when I saw them, and the more I think about it, the more I think that Marc Jacobs probably is smiling too.

Fashion doesn’t always need to be so serious, and often it’s so much more fun when it’s not. That’s one of the reasons for my personal love of Lady Gaga – I think she gets it, and she infuriates people that don’t. It’s no coincidence that she’s also a public fan of Mr. Jacobs. This bag might not be his most practical or classic, but the fact that it exists says good things about the fashion industry. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $995.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Now this is a bag that reminds me of so much. When I first came across the Marc Jacobs Jennifer Bird Cage Shoulder Bag I couldn’t decide if I loved it or completely hated it. I appreciate how unique it is, however, I have some news for you, there is something else I think of more. For all of you Seinfeld fans out there, you are certainly familiar with the retirement community Jerry’s parents live in Florida, Del Boca Vista.

This is the kind of bag I can picture someone in a retirement community picking up and matching with another bird inspired outfit. Ok, well, all joking aside, personally, this bag is too much for me. The black leather, golden hardware and mulitcolor front bird cage embellishments all come together for quite the statement piece. Perhaps someone like Carrie Bradshaw could pull this off with one of her more out there looks, but other than that, I can’t imagine many of us using it, especially at this price. But tell me, can you see yourself rockin this bag or not? Buy through Bergdorf Goodman for $1195.

Original post by Shannon Mahoney

Dolce & Gabbana maybe not have as rabid or dedicated a following as some handbag brands, but that doesn’t stop them from going confidently in the direction of their artistic vision season after season. As with any very specific point of view, the results are often mixed but they’re always very obviously Dolce & Gabbana.

The Dolce & Gabbana Miss Rouche Ruffled Shoulder Bag is the continuation of an idea that we first saw in Fall 2009. Those bags were slightly more manic and ruffle-covered, but this hobo dials things back just a bit and gets it right.

The beauty of this bag is really on the zoom-in, so I encourage you to take a trip over to Saks and play with their photo tools a bit. In these pictures the leather looks a bit thin, but on closer inspection, this bag looks like it would be soft and the wrinkled effect is feminine without being too girly. The same with the ruffles – they don’t come off as too theme-y or unkempt because the bag is fairly simple in shape. It looks stiff in the photos, but something tells me it would loosen right up with a little wear and sag nicely. Buy through Saks for $1450.

Original post by Amanda Mull

What is this that we have here? Do my eyes deceive me? Is this a Fendi bag that I not only like, but would also semi-seriously consider purchasing for myself? This is the second time in several days that I’ve found myself having these thoughts (the first time was about an ornate baguette that Vlad photographed at Design Miami), and it sort of makes me wonder – might Fendi be at the beginning of an accessories design upswing?

It’s too soon to say, but based on the beautiful bags at their Spring 2010 runway show in Milan, I’m hopeful. It would be great to have Fendi back as one of the leaders of the designer pack.

As far as this bag goes, though, its design just seems terribly current to me. It’s the right bag for the right period in time when the right trends are happening. It’s small, slightly retro and built for crossbody wear, the logo embossing actually provides texture instead of just name recognition, and the color and giant tassel are fun and irreverent. But the best part is the price. At a sub-$600 MSRP for a cute, trendy leather bag, Fendi actually has the opportunity to reach out to a young, hip crowd that might breath new life and interest into their accessories line. Buy through Saks for $595.

Original post by Amanda Mull

There’s something so Parisian and ladylike about the Marni Small Crepe Shoulder Bag that I just can’t help but be attracted to. The brand may be Italian, but what we have here looks so much like a cross between Lanvin and Chanel that you’d never know it from just this piece. Somehow, though, I like this bag even more – its lines are cleaner than on some of Chanel’s fashion bags and the totality of the design seems more well-edited than the average Lanvin.

There is so much going on with the bag’s strap – chains, ribbons, faux flowers – that the bag itself actually borders on boring. The mini bag is made of crepe wool instead of leather, and the only changes I would make would be to make the bag itself larger to correspond with the scale of the chain and also make it out of another material – maybe even an exotic to provide some contrasting texture.

Other than those two things, the overall design is unexpected and beautiful. Somehow, Marni manages to combine all of the elements that we see in a way that doesn’t make them looked like they’re tacked-on afterthoughts to spruce up a boring design, and that’s no small accomplishment when dealing with lots and lots of extras. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $975.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Help me out with this one, folks. The Donna Karan Sabre Shoulder Bag is reminding me a lot of Gucci and I can’t quite figure out why.

Is it the shape? Gucci tends to make a lot of big, chunky shoulder bags. Or maybe the color? I’m not a big fan of tan, but Gucci’s tans have always held a special place in my heart – I think they get the amount of orange undertone just right. This one doesn’t seem quite the same, but it’s reminiscent, I think. Maybe it’s the “rustic” accents? There’s no Gucci-signature bamboo, but the claw-like (or tooth-like?) closure still reminds me of the kinds of things they like to do. So are you seeing what I’m seeing, or have I looked at so many handbags that they’re all starting to blur together in my mind? Buy through Bergdorf Goodman for $1895.

Original post by Amanda Mull

I’m not really one to sit and ruminate on a bag. When I see a new one, I either have something to say about it or I don’t, and if I do, it normally gets written about it shortly thereafter. Forming an opinion has never been difficult for me.

But when I saw the Michael Kors Roslyn Leather Shoulder Bag, I found myself experiencing a confusing, unfamiliar mix of feelings – I like the bag, but there’s something not quite right, and I’m having a difficult time putting my finger on it. Let’s discuss this bag’s details, shall we? After all, that’s usually where the devil is.

First, I love the color and how it coordinates with the light gold hardware. This is just the kind of shade that I go looking for when it’s time to switch from winter to spring, and although that’s many months away, it’s perfect for the Resort 2010 collection that this obviously came from. On this rainy, sub-50-degrees day, I’d love to have a reason to buy this bag. A vacation to someplace balmy and exotic, preferably.

But something goes awry circa the handles. I like the knotted shoulder strap – it seems appropriate on this kind of bag where it might look cheap on something more tailored or formal. But then there’s the tote straps for hand-carrying, and they’re so plain and flat that they look like a complete afterthought. The shoulder strap isn’t so ridiculously long that you couldn’t use it to carry the bag by hand or in the crook of your arm, so why add them on anyway?

Maybe the designers tossed them in to give them someplace to hang the little dangling bits that come from the handle attachments. Are those things necessary? No. Would the bag look better without them? I can’t decide. They give some visual interest, which I think it needs, but they also appear to be a stuck-on afterthough. Maybe if they had been incorporated more centrally into the bag’s shape? At least that way, we could have done away with the unnecessary handles. Overall I still like the bag, but I wouldn’t buy it for full price – this seems like the sort of thing you pick up on sale. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $895.

Original post by Amanda Mull

I’ve always been critical of Christian Louboutin handbags in the past, but I’ve seen a few that I don’t hate in the past season. With all the design genius in that company, I knew they would pull together their handbag line sooner or later, and they appear to be slowly but surely turning out some purses that do justice to their drool-worthy shoes. The Christian Louboutin Lolita Montone Bag is surely a step in the right direction.

The biggest criticism I have of this bag is that it’s a bit plain, but since most of Louboutin’s bags are very simple and clean, I’ll chalk that up to a fundamental difference in personal taste between me and whoever is in charge of this line. The pleating, which is the bag’s main visual element, is soft but still refined, and the gold chain handle and Louboutin logo give bag a little bit of shine. Besides, I’ve always been partial to gold hardware with white leather – it just looks right. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $1195.

Original post by Amanda Mull

I think that the handbag folks at Prada and I need to have a little conversation about the Prada Perforated Roll Bag. I have some thoughts, and they would probably best be expressed in private. And by “in private,” I mean “after the jump.”

Where do I even start?

Miuccia & Co., we have a problem here. Prada turns out some fine handbags, no doubt about it, but I think it might be time for the collection to refocus on designing a few truly great bags instead of making a huge collection of bags wherein a lot of them are just…mind-boggling. In a bad way.

There’s no reason that a bag that looks like it was made to coordinate with a University of North Carolina basketball jersey should be produced by a top fashion house and marketed to grown women for over a thousand dollars. The whole premise is mildly insulting. Come to think of it, this thing also bares a striking resemblance to a pencil bag that I had in elementary school, with the addition of some oddly long handles.

It disappoints me that the same people that were responsible for the utterly genius and gorgeous Gauffre bags are the ones that have now come up with what we see here – they can do a lot better, and we all know it. Buy through Saks for $1295.

Original post by Amanda Mull

I’ve got to say at least one nice thing about this bag: Dolce & Gabbana, I like your enthusiasm.

No, actually, I love it. Because the kind of chutzpah it takes to put together seven (that I can count) types of fuzzy animal print onto one bag is the kind of chutzpah that it takes to occasionally create a stinkin’ awesome bag. But at this point, ladies and gentlemen, I have but one caveat: the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Martini Flap Bag is not that bag.

Oddly enough, I think that what this bag suffers from the most is not that there are too many patterns, but that all of the patterns are too similar. Instead of creating contrast and visual interest, they all sort of meld together into one big tan animal print glob, and the result is decidedly “craft store.”

Not that it would have been any better had they added in, say, zebra print or snake print. This idea was more or less dead in the water from the get-go, but if it takes making a thousand ridiculous bags to finally get to one that’s genuinely great, then I’m okay with that. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Buy through Nordstrom for $1075.

Original post by Amanda Mull