What is it with women and handbags?

26 August 2009

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Deborah Ross meets Anya Hindmarch, Britain’s accessory queen, and finally gets to the bottom of our obsession with fashionable bags

Look, can I be totally honest? I know, I know, it’s not usually my style, but today I’m going to be honest and what I want to honestly say is this: I may be a little in love with Anya Hindmarch, the handbag designer and creator of that ‘I am not a plastic bag’ canvas shopping bag. Now, am I as surprised by this turn of events as anyone? Christ, yes. I am not even into handbags and, as a rule, am wholly scornful of the women who are. Some days, sneering at women who are into handbags is actually all I do. (And it’s more tiring than you might think. I’m exhausted by the evening.) But I just don’t get those who are obsessed with ‘designer’ bags, spend fortunes on them, and even go on waiting-lists for the ‘must-have’ bag of the season. Must have or what? Your legs will fall off. A handbag can never be as must-have as a hip joint, surely? So I did not expect to fall in love with Anya Hindmarch, nor did I expect to actually buy one of her bags, but here’s a thing: I did both.

I’d like to say I don’t know what came over me, but I think I do. I met Anya, I had lunch with Anya, I walked with Anya to her Sloane Street store and because I was with her, and she’s lovely, and so gracious, I just wasn’t as petrified as I would have been otherwise — smart shops usually scare the living daylights out of me. I keep fearing someone from security will tap me on the shoulder and ask: ‘Madam, are you lost? Were you looking for Poundland?’ But without that terror — ‘Out the way, out the way, coming through with Anya Hindmarch...’ — I could see that a wonderful handbag might be a fine thing. And her handbags are wonderful: all buttery, baby-soft leathers and glass-like patents but, never having looked close-up before, it’s the craftsmanship and attention to the teeniest detail that gets me: the mini-leather tassels attached to the zip-pulls, the dinky internal clip for your key; the beautiful linings; the delicious smell of real leather which, perhaps not astonishingly, smells quite different to the smell of faux leather from a market stall. I feel the first stirrings of desire. I try on every bag in the shop, more or less, and then think: ‘Goddamn it, I am going to have one of these bags.’ I chose the ‘Chantry’, a patent tote in the most astonishing Yves Klein blue, reduced in the sale from £345 to £170, although when I take it to the till Anya tries to give it to me as a gift. Naturally, I protest. ‘Anya’, I say, ‘if I’d known I wasn’t paying, I’d have picked a much more expensive one. Give me one of those £1,000 bespoke Ebury’s, and be quick about it!’

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David Short

August 27th, 2009 2:10pm Report this comment

I doubt that even one per cent of the readers of The Spectator have an 'obsession with fashionable handbags'.

David Short

August 27th, 2009 2:33pm Report this comment

How much advertising can The Spectator hope for from Hindmarsh in return for this flattering advertiew?

A. MacAulay

August 27th, 2009 9:01pm Report this comment

The popular German TV philosopher, Sloterdjk noted that the common heritage from our hunter-gatherer ancestors is demonstrated by the also ideal participation of men, as hunters, in team sports with a ballistic element and women, as gatherers, with the carrying of handbags.

That prehistoric women also lost their keys in the depths of their proto-bags we can take as given. Just as their demonstrating their position in the cave hierarchy to their fellow females with cowrie shells and such like and that their hard hunting menfolk missed the point completely.

Thank you Deborah Ross for once again amusingly demonstrating, with not a little irony, one of the less interesting differences between women and normal people.

Sheila Conroy

August 28th, 2009 9:50pm Report this comment

I usually find Deborah Ross's film and restaurant reviews amusing, tidily written and good light entertainment. However, when I saw that there were five pages by her on handbags, I not only didn't bother to go past the first page, but started to wonder just how far down the Hello! road the Spectator intends to go.