chanel handbags

Last night, we traveled to Upper East Side boutique Samantha Thavasa, a Japanese handbag brand and store, for a sneak peak at Tinsley Mortimer’s Fall 2010 handbag line. We admit we only found out Mortimer’s line for Thavasa existed by watching recently-canceled guilty pleasure reality show High Society. It turns out the Tins has been designing capsule collections for Samantha Thavasa for a few seasons. This one was inspired by 1980s rock bands. The reason for the ’80s inspiration? Tinsley says she’s a product of the ‘80s and loves ‘80s music. The bags were also a little inspired by lingerie and corsets, she explained, which was a lot more evident than the ‘80s rock band thing, aside from the names of the handbags, which were “Poison,” “Guns N Roses,” “White Snake,” “Metallica,” and “Def Leopard.” We weren’t huge fans of the collection, except for a couple of cute, simple quilted purses with long chain link straps that were, well, Chanel knock-offs in quirky colors. We were also wondering why, of all brands, Tinsley would be designing for this Japanese handbag line that only has one store in the U.S.? Also, who is Tinsley’s customer? Who is buying these bags? Then, we realized: Japanese people. Apparently, Samantha Thavasa is huge in Japan and American celebrities like Beyonce, Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham have all starred in ad campaigns for the cutesy upscale handbags. And we all know the Japanese go crazy over pretty, blonde, American socialites, especially those with small faces. We’re actually sort of impressed that Tinsley was able to identify this market for herself.

How to dress: Clutch control

You can tell the exact moment when a wedding reception hits its stride by the sudden appearance of stray handbags on tables, like starfish at low tide, while their owners are off having fun. A clutch bag is a fabulous prop for posing with. So much more elegant to be stood on a lawn, hands clasped serenely around a jewelled bag, than to show your nerves by fidgeting, one hand tugging at imaginary fabric caught in your knickers and the other absent-mindedly worrying at last weekend's mosquito bites. And while clutch-addiction can hit your bank account hard, it won't damage you, so it's a healthier social crutch than a wine glass or a cigarette. But fast-forward a few hours, and the clutch becomes an impediment. You cannot clutch and have fun at the same time; it's a physical impossibility. And the conventional short-strapped evening bag isn't much better. What generally happens with the snug over-the-shoulder bag is once you put stuff in it, it wants to fall off, so has to be clamped to your side by means of a tensed upper arm. And once you've got the arm tensed, your body language is all nervy-late-night-walk-back-from-bus-stop, rather than night-of-your-life. Enter this summer's going-out bag: the long-strap, boxy-bag. The strap means it can bounce around on your hip and it won't fall off; the boxiness gives it a kind of treasure-trunk mystery. A metal chain and a squared off shape give it a hint of Chanel 2.55 heritage, which is never a bad thing. Too nice to be left on a table; thankfully, you won't have to..

No Handbags at Dawn

A few months ago, one of my friends went to have dinner in a restaurant in London. As always, she carefully placed her handbag by the wall, under the table by her feet. Now that should be fine right?

Wrong. Ten minutes later the bag was gone and no one had been seen passing the table. Fully suited and booted, she proceeded to check all the bins in the neighbourhood. (I know what you’re thinking: if it wasn’t so bad it’d be funny.) Nothing there, so off home to change the locks, cancel the credit cards and the mobile phone, and call the police. In that order. The bobby was very nice and took a report over the phone, then proceeded to make sure she had indeed called the locksmith and was safely at home. Total damage restricted to a £50 phone bill, £300 for the new locks and a wounded ego. Few weeks later, the police called her back to say they were closing the case, and needless to say she’s never gone back to the restaurant.

Fast forward a few months and I found myself in DC deciding where to go for dinner. I finally settled on a bar/restaurant attached to a bookshop just off DuPont. Brilliant choice, specifically since I was on my own and it’s so much easier to sit at a bar pretending to read a book while watching the world go by. I got my book out of my bag, closed it up and put the strap around my leg. (Having one purse stolen a few years ago was more than enough to my liking.) Another diner came in, let’s call her M, sat down two stools away from me, and proceeded to put her purse on the floor. This obviously was none of my business, but it did briefly cross my mind that it was not particularly sensible. Another single diner comes in - we’ll call him T - obviously looking for a bit of company in a strange city, and started a conversation with M and myself. All great fun and we proceed to discuss all the main taboos of bar conversation, including politics and religion. Another few drinks later M, decided to call it a day. She reached for her purse which is no longer there. No one had seen it happen. The police were called and she wasn't allowed to leave until they had spoken with her. They were nice enough, really, but certainly not to be messed with and in a way very authoritative. The bar staff were brilliant and gave all the support she needed, but then started beating themselves up about not having warned her. Apparently they stopped warning people a long time ago since so many customers would get snooty and they would lose their tips.

Even more recently, I was gallivanting around the Middle East and came across multiple instances of expensive handbags sitting open on tables. Phones, money, passports and everything else you may expect to find in a handbag on full display, but no owner in sight. It made me think. Nine out of ten times, these bags sit there untouched until the owner shows up, or are returned to them fully intact. Perhaps this whole naming and shaming in the local newspapers with full names and pictures - as they still do around that part of the world - has some advantages.

Well, that and, of course, the fact that the likelihood of being caught is very high and the punishments are, to use an understatement, very harsh.

From: http://life.hereisthecity.com/

Grace Kelly exhibition features famous battered handbag

A V&A exhibition celebrating the fashion icon and Hollywood star Grace Kelly includes a battered handbag once used to hide an early pregnancy bump in 1956.   

An employee poses in front of outfits worn by Grace Kelly that form part of an exhibition of her wardrobe at the V&A in London. It also includes her famous handbag. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters.  




A Van Cleef & Arpels diamond tiara, a Chanel suit, an Yves Saint Laurent dress, a Balenciaga jacket and several pairs of Christian Dior sunglasses all feature in the exhibition Grace Kelly: Style Icon, which opens at the Victoria & Albert museum tomorrow. But the star exhibit is a battered brown leather handbag.

On loan from the palace archives in Monaco is the original Hermès handbag with which Princess Grace tried to shield her early pregnancy bump from photographers in 1956. One photograph made the cover of Life magazine – and by holding the bag prominently Princess Grace made it so famous that the style, which had been known since 1935 as the Sac à Dépêches was renamed "the Kelly" in her honour.

The scuffs and marks on the handbag are evidence that, despite her high-maintenance image, Grace Kelly was surprisingly thrifty with her wardrobe. The signs of wear and tear make it clear she continued to carry the same handbag for many years – a sharp contrast to the habits of modern celebrities, who avoid wearing the same outfit twice. Victoria Beckham is believed to own more than 100 Hermès Birkin handbags in different sizes, styles and colours, a collection with a retail value of over $2m (£1.3m).

Kelly became sentimental about clothes she associated with good memories, and the exhibition includes several more examples of the surprisingly hard-working wardrobe which underpinned the Grace Kelly fairytale. A pale blue gown made for Kelly to wear to a 1954 premiere by Edith Head, the legendary Paramount studios costume designer, is the very same dress which Kelly wore to collect her Oscar for The Country Girl the following year, and then again for a cover of Life magazine. Jenny Lister, the V&A curator of fashion who has worked for 18 months to put the exhibition together, admitted she "thought very carefully" about giving the title of "Style Icon" to the show. "It's an overused phrase. There are very few people who really deserve to be called a style icon – but Grace Kelly is one of them."

The exhibition is already attracting international attention, a testament to the enduring appeal of Kelly's classic, feminine style of dressing. Lister predicts visitors will be surprised by some of Kelly's later wardrobe, which includes a brightly coloured Yves Saint Laurent "Mondrian" dress from 1965 and flowing, bohemian-era gowns by Christian Dior. "The look which Kelly fixed in the public imagination in the mid-1950s, the era of Rear Window and High Society and of her spectacular wedding, was so strong she will always be remembered looking the way she did at that moment," notes Lister.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/