Fifty years of handbags and I never once wrote to a shop about one. This is the exception
Fifty years of handbags and I never once wrote to a shop about one. This is the exception
Six things the Tamar gets right that everyday bags get wrong, from a woman who does not review handbags.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, and I have carried handbags for fifty years without once writing to a shop about one. What I have done is wear out a lifetime of them, stiff ones that scuffed, floppy ones that ate my keys, cheap ones that looked cheap by the second month. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about a bag, saying so.
The one I am writing about is called the Tamar, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. I first saw it on the shoulder of the woman two pitches down at the caravan site, every day of the week, with every cardigan she owned, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
A caramel bag with a wide woven strap, teal with gold patterns worked into it, like something carried home from somewhere interesting. Beside it my sensible black handbag looked like a bin liner with handles. Read on.
Here is what fifty years of handbags taught me. They come in two piles. The smart pile, stiff precious things that scuff at the corners, hold nothing, and demand to be looked after like a third grandchild. And the practical pile, floppy dark sacks with open tops, where everything you own sinks to the bottom and hides.
Stiff and precious, or floppy and bottomless. Those were the handbag options, and I had done my years in both.
The Tamar is the first bag I have owned that is neither, and having carried it daily since it arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. I did not.
It does not look like its price
It looks like something with a story behind it. The finish is supple and softly grained, the sort of vintage look people assume was picked up years ago and looked after, and it sits with a composed slouch rather than collapsing. Two women at church have assumed it cost several times what it did. I have stopped correcting them.
On the hall table. It has a way of looking like it has always been there.
A woman at the garden centre asked if it was an heirloom. It had been mine for a fortnight.
Barbara W., OtleyThe strap is the show
Most bag straps are an apology, a thin dark strip that digs in by the end of the street. This one is wide and woven, teal with a gold pattern running its whole length, so the weight spreads and the shoulder never complains. It adjusts with a little brass buckle, and it clips off at two brass hooks, which also means it is the one bag on any rack nobody mistakes for theirs.
The strap up close. The little brass hook is the detail that finished me.
The strap gets more compliments than the bag, and the bag gets plenty. Nothing digs in.
Sylvia M., WetherbyIt zips shut, right across the top
I do not know when handbags decided an open top was acceptable, but I never agreed. The Tamar closes with a proper zip across the whole opening, so nothing spills when it tips over in the car, and on the bus into town my hand can rest on the strap instead of guarding the top. That is a small thing that turns out not to be small.
First bag in years I trust on the bus into town. Zipped shut, hand on the strap, done.
Margaret H., PontefractThe inside is on your side
Inside it is properly lined, in a light colour so you can actually see what is in there, with pockets that give things homes. My glasses have a place. My keys have a place. My phone has a place. Nothing sinks to the bottom to hide under a rain hood, and I have stopped doing the pavement excavation every time the phone rings.
Glasses case and keys going into their homes. Nothing hides in this bag.
Phone, glasses and rain hood each have their own spot. Nothing rattles round the bottom any more.
Kathleen B., SkiptonIt holds a proper day out without becoming a sack
A cardigan, an umbrella, a book, the glasses, the purse, and a bag of wool from the market on the way home. It takes all of it, and because the shape has some composure to it, it still looks like a handbag at the end rather than a bin bag with a strap. Empty or full, it holds its line.
Cardigan, brolly, book and the shopping, and it still looked composed getting off the bus.
Doreen T., IlkleyIt goes with everything, and it earns its keep
Caramel, it turns out, goes with every coat and cardigan I own, which is more than I could ever say for black. It does church, the market, the caravan run and a birthday lunch without a change of bag, and they make it in black, green and cream as well for women more sensible than me. The old bags lived in the cupboard taking turns. This one has not been put away since it arrived.
I bought it for best and now it does every day too. The caramel goes with everything I put on.
Jean A., GuiseleyThe Tamar, against the handbags you have been buying
You can find a handbag for thirty-odd pounds anywhere. I know, because I own the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Stiff and precious, or floppy and bottomless
A thin strap that digs in by the second street
An open top that spills and invites
One dark cave inside, everything hidden
Look exactly what they cost
Supple vintage finish that keeps its composure
Wide woven teal and gold strap, soft on the shoulder
A proper zip right across the top
Light lining and pockets, everything to hand
Looks a great deal dearer than it is
About the price
The Tamar is £34.94, down from £70.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the last run of them being cleared to make room for the autumn stock, and once the run is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a mark-down like that is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and weeks of daily carrying in, 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 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.
On its hook by the door, packed for the next outing. The caravan is coming round again.
If you have a market morning, a church coffee, a caravan weekend or a bus into town anywhere in your future, and your current bag is a bin liner with handles or a precious thing you are frightened of, this is the one I would put on your shoulder myself, while the caramel is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Pat
TAMAR | VINTAGE BAG
- Supple vintage finish that looks far dearer than it is
- Wide woven teal and gold strap, soft on the shoulder
- A proper zip right across the top
- Light lining with pockets, everything to hand
- Caramel, plus black, green and cream
- One size, no decisions to make
- Free UK delivery
Last run being cleared. Once it is gone, it is gone.