Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Bag the right one!

Bags have long ceased to be a utility item. Now, they are a fashion statement. Check out with SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY whether yours has the zing

FASHIONABLY YOURS The market is full of options to carry your image on your shoulder!

Ask what is the first thing you notice in a man at the first meeting, and many women will surprisingly be found saying, shoes. Yes, you heard it right, shoes. Shoes, a lot of women feel, can say a lot about the man beyond his stylish outfit.

Most believe dressing up modishly is no more an exclusivity to a select few in an age when designer stores spring up in every nook. But where you can get the real pulse of a well-groomed, meticulous man is in checking out the rest of the gear, which actually completes the fashion statement. For example, the right shoes to go with the right outfit, a belt with the appropriate colour, texture, shape, buckle and weave, the pair of socks with a matching hue and other such finer details. What one wants to indicate here is, accessories these days are as important as having the right outfit in your wardrobe.

But leaving men to their fate here, and turning to women's fashion accessories, it's no news that if pairing the right shoes with the right outfit is important enough for a lady, an equally vital part, and you bet she knows it by now, is pairing the right bag with it. The worth of having the right bag for the desired get-up is so fetching a fad now that it won't be surprising to hit upon a man on the street admitting the first thing he notices as a fashion quotient of a woman these days is her bag!

We all know that bags have long ceased to be a mere utility item for a working woman but have become an important tool for all urban ladies. Part of a statement to be made to the rest of the world.

And those in trend know that the terms that dictate the latest style in ladies' bags are - colours, shapes, designs on them and the material used to make them.

To begin with high-end tags like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, etc, the colours on their stacks are seen to be a little understated. Black, brown and white are still the universal favourites here. But shapes get an array in their stores no doubt. The popular ones seem to be the satchels and the totes in the bigger bag section and the handle bags in smaller bags. Plenty of attention has clearly gone into embellishments too.

Walk across from the high street of fashion to street fashion, and sure enough all you see is a hotchpotch of shapes in bags, but also a play of colours and detailing. Be it Janpath, Sarojini Nagar or Lajpat Nagar, the trend is clear, unlike the bigger stores - let's pick the biggest one. And if something interesting is done on it, better still. And yes, they need not be in the usual black and brown leather, but can be made of anything provided they look chic.

Says Delhi's own Manish Arora, a designer first to stride into accessory designing alongside garments, "Colour is now a big factor in ladies' bags. You get to see some real bright colours now in bags. Big bags are absolutely in. But more than shapes, I feel, another factor that has the selling power now is, what is on them." What he means here is, detailing on the bags.

"The detailing can be purely ethnic or it can be sequin work, embroidery, beads, patches, metal work, etc," he explains. For this Spring/ Summer, Manish says, not just colours but prints would really be in vogue too.

And before you know it, street vendors are already stocking bags with prints on them in Janpath and Sarojini Nagar.

"The most bags that I have sold in the last six months are these sling bags made of cloth with a big strap and lot of Gujarati and Rajasthani style mirror work and embroidery done on them in patches. Most college girls ask for them now," says a roadside bag seller on Janpath.

Bargains

They come between Rs.150 and 350 depending on how well you can bargain. Also, tracking the increased liking for straw bags, one or two vendors on Janpath and quite a few in Sarojini Nagar are already storing straw bags with leather straps. Bargain well and you might get them for Rs.175 or so.

Sums up a rather calculative shopper at Sarojini Nagar, "You need a designer bag to take along to a formal occasion and for that, you can invest in a latest Louis Vuitton or a Dior or Prada. But for everyday occasions, even to attend parties, you need to change bags according to your outfits and for that, street shops are the best. There is a lot of variety in informal bags. Besides the ethnic types, you get a good range of fakes too now." In a market where the real and the look-alike vye for everyone's attention, all that smart shoppers in search of a bag are doing is to check out whether it is really in trend.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail