I am 68 and the first handbag I have ever written a letter about is covered in sequin flowers the colour of autumn
I am 68 and the first handbag I have ever written a letter about is covered in sequin flowers the colour of autumn
Six things this little shoulder bag gets right that fifty years of good bags kept in boxes and everyday bags that look like the shopping got wrong, from a woman who is already choosing her second.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I had better say who is talking before anything else. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian and his spaniel Wilf, and in fifty years of buying handbags I have never once written to a shop about one. I have owned good bags and I have owned useful bags, and I have never owned a bag that was both, so there was never anything to write about. Well. There is now.
The bag I am writing about is the Harvestbloom, one of the floral sequin shoulder bags from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly finding women like me the things we did not know we were allowed to have for a few years now. There are fourteen designs in the collection, all the same neat little shoulder bag, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw it at the brass band concert at Leeds Town Hall, on the woman in the row in front of us. When the interval came she stood up, tucked a little bag of sequin flowers under her arm and went for her cup of tea, and I watched it catch the lights all the way down the aisle. By the second half I had stopped listening to the cornets. In the tea queue afterwards I asked her about it, plainly. Read on.
On the hook by the front door, next to Brian’s cap. It has not been put away in a box once.
Here is what fifty years of handbags taught me. They come in two piles. The good bags, the little evening ones you are given as presents, that live in their dust bags in the bottom of the wardrobe because they will not take your glasses case and you are frightened of spoiling them. And the everyday bags, the big sensible ones that hold everything and look, if we are honest, like something you would carry the potatoes home in.
A bag was either too good to use or too plain to look at. I had stopped expecting there to be anything in between.
This little bag is the first thing I have owned that sits right in between, and having carried it to a birthday tea, a Sunday lunch and a night at the pictures in the space of three weeks, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I half expected it to look cheap out of the packet. It did not.
The flowers are sewn on, not printed
This is the thing you notice first, and it is the thing that makes it look dearer than it is. The whole front is covered in flowers made of tiny sequins and stitching, laid over a textured woven background. There is one big golden flower across the top, a cluster of berry pink and gold sequins in the corner, and a white flower and a little blue one stitched in underneath, with dark green leaves filling the gaps. They are the colours of an autumn garden, and you can run your finger over every petal. Nothing about it looks mass produced, and everybody who has seen it has wanted to touch it.
Under the lamp of an evening. The golden flower is my favourite part.
I was expecting a flat print with a bit of glitter. It is proper sequin flowers, stitched on, and it looks far more expensive than I paid.
Margaret H., LouthIt sparkles when the light finds it, and settles down when it does not
I was worried about the sequins. I did not want to walk into Sunday lunch looking like the fairy off the top of the tree. What I found is that the sparkle behaves itself. In ordinary daylight it reads as a pretty floral bag with a bit of shine to it. Under the lights at the Town Hall, or the lamps in a restaurant, the sequins wake up and catch every bit of light going. It is the same bag for a morning in town and an evening out, and it never once looks like it is trying too hard.
Subtle enough for church in the morning and lovely at the golf club dinner in the evening. That is exactly what I wanted and could never find.
Pauline K., HorncastleIt tucks under your arm and leaves both hands free
It has one short shoulder strap, and that is the whole trick of it. The bag sits snug under your arm, close to your side, so you have a hand for your cup of tea and a hand for the banister, which at my age is not a small consideration. The woman at the concert went the length of the tea queue, paid, and carried her cup and saucer back to her seat without once putting it down. The back of the bag is plain smooth tan, so the side against your coat is quiet and the flowers face out.
Sits under my arm like it was made for it. Glass in one hand, plate in the other at my grandson’s wedding, and not once did I have to put my bag down.
Sheila B., Woodhall SpaIt zips right across the top
I have lost more lipsticks to open handbags than I care to count. This one has a zip that runs the full length of the top, so when it is closed it is closed, and nothing slides out when you bend down for your coat or put it on the floor under a chair in the pictures. It sounds like a small thing to write about. It is the reason I stopped checking my bag every five minutes.
The zip goes all the way along, which I checked before anything else. Nothing falls out and nobody can see in. Pretty and sensible, for once.
Brenda M., SleafordIt holds what an evening actually needs
I want to be honest about the size, because it matters. It is 27.5 cm across, about the length of a school ruler, 14 cm tall and 6 cm deep. That is a small shoulder bag, not a clutch and not a holdall. Into mine go my glasses in their case, my purse, my phone, my keys, a lipstick and a folded tissue, and it still zips shut without a struggle. Inside it is lined with a smart brown and cream stripe.
The test every evening bag I have owned has failed. My glasses case goes in, with room to spare.
Finally an evening bag that takes my reading glasses. Purse, phone, keys and glasses, and it still closes. I have been looking for years.
Valerie D., Market RasenThere are fourteen of them, and they all look like somebody picked the flowers
The Harvestbloom is one of fourteen designs in the collection, all the same little shoulder bag, all the same price. There is a berry red one called the Scarletbloom, a deep plum and sage one called the Autumnmeadow, blues, lilacs, a soft pink, a navy and a gold, each with its own flowers. I chose the Harvestbloom because it looks like the end of September in a garden. The Autumnmeadow is next on my list, and the Scarletbloom is already ordered and hidden in the wardrobe for my sister June at Christmas. She does not know yet.
It came away with us in the caravan for the last weekend of the season. Brian made the tea.
I bought the gold one for my daughter’s fortieth and ended up ordering myself the red. It was too hard to choose just one.
Jean T., SpilsbyThis little bag, against the ones you have been making do with
You can carry on with the good bag in the box and the big bag on the hook, like I did for fifty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Too small for your glasses case
Kept in a box for fear of spoiling them
A clasp that springs open at the wrong moment
Something to hold, so one hand is always full
Either very plain or far too much
Glasses, purse, phone and keys, zipped in
Hung on the hallway hook and used every week
A zip right across the top
Tucks under your arm, both hands free
Sequin flowers that sparkle only when the light finds them
About the price
The Harvestbloom is £36.95, down from £74.00, and every design in the collection is the same.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in the sale while the first autumn stock goes, and once a design sells through, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than £74.00 on handbags that lived in a box, so £36.95 for one I actually carry every week made it an easy yes.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Next to the last of Brian’s dahlias. I did say it was the colour of autumn.
If you have a good bag in a box that you never dare use and a plain bag on the hook that you never want to, this is where I would start. Have a look at the designs before somebody else takes the one you like, because the pretty ones will not wait. And if you see a woman at a concert with sequin flowers under her arm, it might be me.
Pat
THE FLORAL SHOULDER BAG COLLECTION
- Floral sequins and stitched flowers on the front
- Sparkles under the lights, quiet by day
- One short strap, sits snug under the arm
- Full-length top zip
- 27.5 × 14 × 6 cm, takes a glasses case, purse and phone
- Fourteen designs, £36.95 whichever you choose
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The popular designs are already going.