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.
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