Why Those Trending Hard Handle Bags Are the Definition of Luxury
A bag with a hard handle demands to be worn a certain way.
Today, I’m talking about why hard handle bags are innately luxurious. Also, new #NEVERWORNS episode coming this week!!! In the meantime, watch a YouTube episode here and buy #NEVERWORNS clothes if you want to get freaky!
I get messages about the Yves Saint Laurent Mombasa bag, which I’ve been screaming about for a hot minute. “It sucks! It’s uncomfortable on my shoulder!” Yeah, of course it is! The Tom Ford-imagined bag, which comes in an infinite amount of gotta-catch-em-all silhouettes, boasts a hard handle fashioned out of animal horn, animal horn covered with metal, or simply metal. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to wear on the shoulder; it often slips and sometimes, it is painful. As it should be: The piece really isn’t really made to be worn on the shoulder. (The majority of the runway shots, editorials, and advertisements featuring these bags support this.) Instead, it is meant to be carried by hand, with your arm extended down in a militant manner.
I’ve been seeing hard handle bags making a comeback recently. Puppets & Puppets posted a slew of bloated crescent bags with resin handles in the shapes of bananas and home phones. Then, of course, there has been the mortgage payment of a $4,200 Bottega Veneta Sardine bag, a crosshatched kidney-bean sack that features a slender gold metal handle in the shape of, yes, a sardine. This season, Bottega released a much thicker version of the Sardine’s whittled handle, and I imagine it to be even less shoulder-friendly.
Further in the realm of hard handle bags, there’s also another Tom Ford-designed, second-coming-of-Mombasa bag: the Bianca, which has a Studio 54-worthy shiny shaft-handle. Ford must have had inspiration for that number thanks to his time at Gucci in which bamboo handles were the hot thing on the House’s bags. (PS. Gucci’s bamboo handle versions are generally more comfortable on the shoulder thanks to their curve. My friend recommends wearing them with a jacket to pad the shoulders.)
These hard handle bags are a ladylike moment. A truly elegant expression. It looks stellar to carry them unstuffed and unbothered without a care in the world by one’s side. (I talk about big bag hauling in another piece, btw). But that ease comes at a price and these hard handle bags demand that we morph to them. A person can’t wear a hard handle bag with the ease of a fanny pack or a cross-body bag. Instead, one has to hold a hard handle bag by their side–and in order to carry the bag by the body’s side, it has to be light. It can’t be stuffed like a regular shoulder bag to lug around laptops, two-liter water bottles, and whatnot. No one wants to look like the Leaning Tower of Schlep.
Discomfort in clothes means that there has to be a glamorous give somewhere else. If you’re in high heels, there should be a cab nearby. (No EOD stiletto-induced hobble on a 45-minute, three-transfer subway ride for you!) Do you really need to take off those gloves and send that work email on your phone right now? (No! You can afford to not be rushed.) Each of these garments make ordinary actions more difficult.
The same concept applies to a hard handle bag. Ultimately, a hard handle bag is the biggest pain in the ass to carry. I’ll be damned if I have to carry a hard handle bag on my shoulder, so I won’t. Instead, I imagine that I’ll be a chic sucker and luxuriously carry the light-as-a-feather piece by my side.
Now, here are some hard handle bags for you to carry very little! But you’ll look great!
I feel like it may help to think of them as an accessory for the hand to hold, like they have to be in that one place/in the crook of an elbow, early-mid-00s WAG style, and not anywhere else. Like a clutch with an added handle that makes it easier to grip, not a "this contains my life" holdall.
It is the best bag i have ever seen!!!you can take it all the times all day alla the time!!!