The Designer Bag...Remains the 21st-Century Version of a Coat of Arms

Can your look be saved by the bag?

The designer bag remains the 21st-century version of a coat of arms, but the tyrannical period when everyone was bludgeoned with the same It Bag is over

BY Lisa Armstrong | 07 February 2014

Sarah Jessica Parker seems a pretty smart cookie, wouldn't you say? Sometimes, however - usually when she's engaging in a spot of exercise - she wears sweats. The sight of a woman going to the gym wearing gym clothes last week proved too much for some celebrity magazines. The only thing that rescued Parker from total wardrobe meltdown, agreed the style swat squad, was her bag - a voluminous quilted Chanel number which, from some angles, almost entirely obliterated the offending kit.

This isn't the only example of a woman saved by her bag this year. Myleene Klass, over whom the swankier magazines do not generally trouble themselves, vaulted several rungs up the style chain this week when she accessorised an affordable Littlewoods trenchcoat with a magnificently unaffordable Chanel variant. Instant kudos. It was a similar story for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and the Tale of the Leopard-Print Tote.
The designer bag, we can take it, remains the 21st-century version of a coat of arms. Or a helmet. In a modern reworking of the famous cover picture of Princess Grace carrying an Hermès bag (subsequently renamed the Kelly) to conceal her pregnancy from photographers, Cara Delevingne last week plonked an Anya Hindmarch Maxi zip bag over her face, prompting observers to assume she was concealing a hangover.
Then there is Kim Kardashian. There usually is. For weeks, KK has gamely borne the 10-ton, customised (with nude artwork by George Condo) Hermès Birkin that fiancé Kanye West thoughtfully gave her for Christmas. This is a receptacle so vast and loud that it ought to pay road tax. But it seems to make Kim happy.
Bags do. The tyrannical period when everyone was bludgeoned with the same It Bag is over. But many women retain a weakness for bags that give them a sugar rush each season. The less available, the more desirable. At the height of the Mulberry Alexa bag frenzy, there were 17,000 names on the waiting list.
The current top five sellers at Harrods and matchesfashion.com are Fendi's Deux Jours, Saint Laurent's Sac de Jour, Balenciaga's Le Dix, Dior's Bar bag and Céline's Trio. Louis Vuitton can't get enough of its Parnasséa on to its shelves - deliberately. It's limiting production in order to neutralise perceptions that it has over-exposed certain lines.

All the above are pleasingly classic, ladylike bags, devoid of brash logos and bling, apart, perhaps, from the brand's name, stamped in the now ubiquitously teeny gold letters. Navy has taken over from black; olive from camel; and animal prints are now considered a neutral.
Those not entrapped by the bag thing may be astonished how much of their salaries women will sacrifice - or "invest". When I asked the press director of a well-known luxury name why they had begun charging £3,000 for their bags, where £1,500 had once been tops, she replied: "Hermès has done it for years."
Given the mysterious, alchemic way in which the luxury world operates, one could easily assume that brands are dabbling in a little Zimbabwe‑esque hyperinflation, just because they can. However, a City analyst tells me that the margins on top-end bags are often far smaller than on their more accessibly priced products. "In the case of one particular label, the most expensive bags take four times as long to make - and they never outsource to China."
Stevie, the twenty-something hairdresser blowdrying my hair the other day, told me it wouldn't occur to her to buy a cheap bag. (Note to Zara and Topshop: market your bags, not just your clothes - the luxury brands advertise practically nothing else.)
Stevie maintains that high street bags don't, in the long term, offer value for money. So she happily saves up £800 or so for a Mulberry, although Mulberry, chasing the Apac (Asian Pacific) dollar - with limited success so far - has also crashed through the £2,000 leather ceiling.
Given the mysterious, alchemic way in which the luxury world operates, one could easily assume that brands are dabbling in a little Zimbabwe‑esque hyperinflation, just because they can. However, a City analyst tells me that the margins on top-end bags are often far smaller than on their more accessibly priced products. "In the case of one particular label, the most expensive bags take four times as long to make - and they never outsource to China."
Stevie, the twenty-something hairdresser blowdrying my hair the other day, told me it wouldn't occur to her to buy a cheap bag. (Note to Zara and Topshop: market your bags, not just your clothes - the luxury brands advertise practically nothing else.)
Stevie maintains that high street bags don't, in the long term, offer value for money. So she happily saves up £800 or so for a Mulberry, although Mulberry, chasing the Apac (Asian Pacific) dollar - with limited success so far - has also crashed through the £2,000 leather ceiling.
It hasn't entirely vacated the "middle" market (£350-£700), which is rapidly expanding. This was a niche once dominated by Coach, the American Goliath, which has had a bumpy ride recently, partly thanks to new competition from L  K Bennett, Michael Kors, the Turkish brand Desa, and Aspinal, which have all entered that buzzy area designated "affordable luxury". Having recently hired the British designer Stuart Vevers, who is staging his first show for the company this weekend in New York, Coach is about to up the ante. Game back on.
"Overall competition has intensified globally," says Helen Norris, vice-president of luxury equity research at Barclays. "We've seen a polarisation of the luxury handbag market over the last year with bags over £1,000 performing well and leather bags from the affordable segment taking a substantial share."
Some of my favourites - understated, chic, built to last - come from J&M Davidson, a small British label that rarely charges more than £900 and has a quality factory in Spain.
Back on the high street, Stevie's right. The £50 Zara bag may look a million dollars while it lasts, but it isn't a long-term player. Perhaps that's why, even during a recession, sales of quality bags never really slow down.
But there's another reason bags are performing strongly: the weather. It's bad. And in extreme weather, fashion hibernates. There's nothing you can wear apart from hooded coats, tractor-soled boots - and a glamorous, fabulous bag. In New York, where Fashion Week is under way and it's -8 degrees at night, the FROW is in wardrobe despair.
"I won't be packing many shoes," Harrods' fashion director Helen David told me on Wednesday, adding, "I'm not pleased." At least David has her Birkins and Kellys to console her. "A colourful Birkin can add some spice to all my black outfits," she said, cheering up. "Both adapt really well from day to night. I'm also obsessed with my new Ethan K 'Helen Bag' - a large matte croc tote with lots of inner pockets and zippers to keep me organised, cool and understated."
A good bag: that's still all you need to get dressed in the coming months. SJP knows that. And, as agreed, she's no fool.

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10622633/Can-your-look-be-saved-by-the-bag.html