I have spent fifty years putting my handbag down and going back for it. This one has not left my side since the orchard
I have spent fifty years putting my handbag down and going back for it. This one has not left my side since the orchard
Six things the Lena gets right that a lifetime of handbags got wrong, written by a customer, not a fashion writer.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
Let me say who is talking before anything else. I am Maggie, I am 67, I live in Cheshire with my husband Geoff and a labrador who thinks he runs the house, and I have never once written to a shop about anything. What I have done is carry a handbag every day of my adult life, and put it down on a café chair, a shop counter or a church pew, and walk off without it. So this is not a review. It is a woman who has finally found a bag she does not have to put down, saying so.
The bag is called the Lena, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw it on Apple Day at the community orchard, in the queue for the apple press, and when the boutique later 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.
The woman in front of me had a cup of juice in one hand and a bag of apples in the other, and she paid without putting a single thing down. She unzipped the little pocket on the front of her bag, took out her money, zipped it again and moved along. I was behind her with my apples on my knee, rummaging for my purse. Read on.
Here is what fifty years of handbags taught me. They come in two piles. The big ones, the ones that hold everything and swallow it, so that you are stood at the till with your arm in up to the elbow while a queue forms behind you. And the little ones, the pretty ones, that hold a lipstick and a door key and nothing you actually need. Either way, you take it off your shoulder, you put it down, and sooner or later you walk away from it.
Either I could find nothing in it, or I could fit nothing in it. And whichever it was, I was forever putting it down and going back for it.
The Lena is the first bag I have owned that is neither, and after a month of carrying it everywhere, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. It was on me by lunchtime.
It goes across the body, so it never gets put down
I am starting here because this is what stopped me in the queue. The Lena has one long strap and it sits across you, with the bag resting flat at your hip, so both hands are your own. Juice, apples, the dog lead, a bag of shopping, the rail on the church steps. I went back to the orchard the following Saturday wearing mine, and I did not take it off once from the car park to the car park.
Back at the orchard the Saturday after. Juice in one hand, apples in the other, bag exactly where it should be.
I have stopped leaving my bag on café chairs, because I no longer take it off. It just stays on me all day.
Brenda H., Shipston-on-StourThe zip pocket on the front is where the purse lives
There is a zip pocket straight across the front of the bag, with a long soft tassel on the pull so you can find it without looking. My purse and my keys live in there now, and that is the whole of the secret. At the till I unzip, pay and zip, like the woman at the orchard, and nobody behind me has to watch me dig. The boutique calls it zipped organisation, and for once the fancy phrase is simply true.
The front zip, and the tassel I reach for without looking.
The front pocket is the best thing about it. Card and keys in there, and I am not holding up the whole queue any more.
Valerie P., AlcesterEverything else is zipped away
The whole top of the bag closes with a zip, from one side to the other. So the reading glasses, the tissues, the little bottle of hand cream and the things I carry just in case are all shut in, and nothing tips out when I lean over a crate of apples or put the bag on the car seat. I have had bags with a magnet clasp and a flap, and I have picked my lipstick out of the footwell more times than I can count.
Zip along the top and zip on the front. Nothing falls out and nothing gets lost at the bottom. Exactly what I wanted.
Christine D., KenilworthIt is light enough to forget about
This matters more at our age than anybody admits. My old bag was so heavy empty that my shoulder ached before I had put anything in it. The Lena is light, properly light, and I carried it from a morning at the orchard through lunch at June’s and a walk with the dog after without once wanting to take it off. When I get home it goes on the back of a kitchen chair, and I notice it then for the first time all day.
Home, on the back of the kitchen chair, with the cardigan. The only time all day I take it off.
So light. I wore it round the shops from ten until four and my shoulder did not complain once.
Ann R., SouthamIt looks dearer than it was
It is a clean square shape with little retro touches, a stitched seam straight down the middle and that long tassel on the front zip, and it has the look of a good old bag somebody has looked after for years. That is honestly what I thought when I saw it at the orchard. The finish is soft and gently grained, and the boutique calls it hard-wearing, which so far it has been, through a month of car doors, crates and a labrador.
My daughter asked if it was an old one I had kept. I took that as a compliment. It looks far dearer than it was.
Lesley B., Henley-in-ArdenThe caramel goes with every autumn coat I own
It comes in the one colour, a warm caramel, and I have not found a coat it argues with. It sits on my navy quilted jacket, my good camel coat and the old green waxed one I walk the dog in, and it looks right on all of them. I have since gone back for a second one, for my sister June, which is exactly what the woman at the orchard did. She had bought one for her daughter as well.
Bought one for myself and one for my sister. The caramel goes with everything, navy, black, camel, even my red coat.
Gillian W., AlcesterThe Lena, against the handbags you have been buying
You can spend thirty pounds on a handbag in any shop in the country. I know, because the back of my wardrobe is full of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Carried on one shoulder, forever slipping off
One big hole where everything sinks
A flap or a clasp that lets things tip out
Heavy before you have put anything in
Put down, and one day left behind
Worn across the body, both hands free
A zip pocket on the front for the purse and keys
A full zip along the top, nothing falls out
Light to carry from morning to evening
Never needs putting down at all
About the price
The Lena is £29.95, down from £60.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that it is in their autumn sale and the first autumn stock is already going, and once it sells through, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a mark-down is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and after a month of wearing it every day, I have not found it.
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 women 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.
On the hall table by the front door, keys in the dish, ready to go.
If you are tired of putting your handbag down and going back for it, of digging at the till while the queue sighs behind you, this is the one I would put across your shoulder for you myself, while the autumn stock is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Maggie
THE LENA RETRO SIDE BAG
- Worn across the body, both hands free
- Zip pocket across the front for purse and keys
- Full zip fastening along the top
- Light to carry from morning to evening
- Clean square shape with retro details
- Warm caramel that goes with everything
- Free UK delivery
Autumn sale on now. Once it is gone, it is gone.