I have packed a bag for fifty years of weekends away. This is the first one anybody has ever stopped to look at
I have packed a bag for fifty years of weekends away. This is the first one anybody has ever stopped to look at
Six things the Melodyvana gets right that a lifetime of sensible holdalls 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 pack a bag for a weekend away more times than I could count, and every one of those bags has been black, sensible and forgotten the moment I put it down. So this is not a review. It is a woman who has finally found a bag worth looking at, saying so.
The bag is called the Melodyvana, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making lovely things for women our age for a few years now. I first saw it at the reception of a little B&B in Robin Hood’s Bay, on three nights away with Geoff while the dog stayed with the sitter, 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 ahead of us set her bag down on the counter to sign in, and the landlady stopped halfway through handing over her key. A night sky in swirls of navy, two gold moons, purple hills, a blue guitar standing in a field of sunflowers, and big red roses for wheels. Geoff, who notices nothing, said, there is a moon as well. Read on.
Here is what fifty years of packing taught me. Weekend bags come in two piles. The sensible ones, black or navy or a sort of mushroom colour, that do the job and have all the personality of a bin bag, so you tie a ribbon on the handle to tell yours apart. And the fun ones, the bright striped beach things, that look daft on a wet October platform and daft on a woman of my age. Either way, nobody has ever looked at my luggage and smiled.
Either it was so sensible I could not find it in a pile, or so jolly I felt I had borrowed it from my granddaughter.
The Melodyvana is the first bag I have owned that is neither, and after three nights on the coast and a few weeks at home, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. I sat on the bed and looked at it for ten minutes instead.
It is a picture, not a bag
I am starting here because this is what stopped the landlady mid-sentence. The whole of the side is a night sky, deep navy with little gold stars and two crescent moons, over rolling hills in lavender and purple. Standing in front of the hills is a blue guitar, and beside it a clump of sunflowers and red roses. And the bag is shaped like a little rounded van, so two of the roses are its wheels. It is the sort of thing you would hang on a wall if it were not so useful.
Home again, on the armchair in the front room. Geoff says it has taken his seat. He is right.
I bought it for the guitar and stayed for the moons. People stop me on the platform to ask about it, every single trip.
Margaret S., FileyI am still finding new things in it
This is the part I did not expect. On the first morning, at breakfast, I noticed the second moon. On the drive home I noticed the pine trees at each end. And the front of the van has a big orange sunflower for a headlight, with a tiny landscape painted in the middle of it, and a little yellow sunflower above. The woman at reception said she had owned hers for months and was still finding bits. I thought she was exaggerating. She was not.
On the window seat of our room, with the harbour behind it. The sunflower headlight, which I missed completely on the first day.
Every time I pick it up I spot something else. My grandson counted the stars on the train and lost count.
Pauline R., BridlingtonThe quilting follows the picture
Up close, the whole bag is quilted, and the stitching is not in the usual dull diamonds. It follows the picture. It swirls round and round in the sky, it ripples along the hills in waves, and it curls in little spirals across the body of the guitar. So the picture has a texture you can feel, and it is soft to the hand rather than stiff. The boutique calls it an eye-catching textured look, which is putting it mildly.
The stitching is lovely. It feels like a proper quilt, and it looks far dearer than it was.
Irene T., StaithesIt takes a proper few nights, or just the one
It comes in two sizes, with the measurements written down plainly. The bigger one, 46 by 23 by 23 centimetres, is the one the boutique says to choose for two or three days away, and it took my three nights on the coast, two outfits, my good shoes, a wash bag and the cardigan I always take and never wear. The smaller one, 40 by 20 by 20, is for a single night or the leisure centre, and the boutique says it works as a roomy cabin bag. They also say most people are happiest with the bigger one, and I agree.
I went for the big one and it took a long weekend at my daughter’s with room for the presents on the way home.
Sheila M., FileyTwo good handles, and a very steep street
If you have been to Robin Hood’s Bay you will know the road down from the car park to the old village is steep enough to make your knees write a letter of their own. The Melodyvana has two quilted handles on top that come together in one hand, and I carried it down that hill and back up again on the last morning without once swapping hands. It hangs at your side at a sensible height, and it is a manageable size, which is more than I can say for the case Geoff brought.
Back up the hill on the last morning. One hand, no stopping, the sea behind us.
Easy to carry, handles sit nicely in the hand, and not so big that it drags. Perfect for the train.
Jean W., BridlingtonThe colours are dusk colours, so it suits the autumn
This is what finally sold it to me. Most cheerful bags are summer bags, all lemon and turquoise, and look lost in October. The Melodyvana is navy and plum and lavender, with warm gold moons and sunflowers, the colours of the sky just after the sun goes down. It looks right beside a camel coat and a pair of walking shoes, on a grey platform or a wet harbour wall. I have since gone back for a second one, a different design for my sister June, which is exactly what the woman at reception said she had done for her friend.
Not childish at all, the colours are rich and grown up. Bought another for my sister for Christmas.
Dorothy H., StaithesThe Melodyvana, against the weekend bags you have been buying
You can spend thirty pounds on a weekend bag in any shop in the country. I know, because the top of my wardrobe is full of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Black or navy, and gone in a pile
A ribbon on the handle so you can find it
Stiff, plain panels in dull diamonds
Summer brights that look lost in October
Nothing anybody has ever stopped to look at
A whole night-sky picture you carry
Spot it across a station or a car park
Soft quilting that follows the picture
Dusk colours that suit the autumn
Stopped a B&B reception in its tracks
About the price
The Melodyvana is £32.95 in the 40 centimetre size and £35.95 in the 46, down from £66.00.
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 three nights away and a good few weeks at home, 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.
Packed on the luggage rack the night before we left, the sea just out of sight.
If your weekend bag is the one nobody ever remembers, the black thing with a ribbon on the handle, this is the one I would hand you across the counter myself, while the autumn stock is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Maggie
THE MELODYVANA WEEKEND BAG
- A night-sky picture with a guitar, sunflowers and rose wheels
- Soft quilting that follows the artwork
- Two quilted carry handles
- 40 x 20 x 20 cm £32.95, or 46 x 23 x 23 cm £35.95
- Rich dusk colours that suit the autumn
- Free UK delivery
Autumn sale on now. Once it is gone, it is gone.