Lusty slut

I went bag shopping yesterday. I’m looking for a handbag for my sister’s birthday present to give her when I go home next month (HURRAH, DID I TELL YOU I’M GOING TO THE UK?)

For my birthday last October I was given a map to a secret location (I kid you not) where one can procure a certain type of receptacle (a nudge is as good as a wink, eh?) I took my friend with me. I did find what I wanted: good quality, imported leather, price tag to match. Honestly, getting friend to the secret location, was almost too exciting to bear.

Next we went somewhere much less thrilling but I wasn’t happy with what I saw. I came home and today, after some news about our future which I can’t share yet, I decided I wanted to go to the big mall, Siam Paragon to look at the bags. It’s a sad thing to admit that ‘looking at bags’ will make this simple creature happy. And it dawned on me that I’ve never told you all that I am … well … a bit of a bag slut.

My love of bags is, I think, about the search for the perfect bag. Of course most of you will believe that to be impossible and certainly one of the delights is to keep looking, purchasing and using the bags in the hope that it will one day I will realise that the current bag is The One.

How great is that? – a lifelong search for something as enigmatic as a perfect bag. How can any bag be perfect when there are different needs for them? I have, however, found the perfect purse, so now I feel filled with hope that one day I will find bag paragon. And of course, that means there's a need for further research.

My bag thing started twenty odd years ago when I discovered an English leather bag company’s factory shop an hour and a half drive away from where we were living. Husband was a research scientist in those days, and we had no money. I used to drive over to the Mulberry shop, for that was what it was called, and caress the bags. I lusted, readers, shamelessly.

Then one day I bought myself my first Mulberry bag. It was a black shopper – tote? And I bought it because I could afford it, rather than it being the bag I wanted. I still have it. It will never go out of fashion. My next one, again from the Mulberry factory shop was purchased by Husband for me for another anniversary present. This one is chocolate brown leather, think ‘old fashioned doctor’s bag’. I still have it. It’s a classic.

And I can’t take you through all the others – not because I don’t know their individual stories, sadly I do, but because it would bore you all to tears.

Can I also say that I’m not in love with all designer bags; I buy many, many cheap and undesignery bags, and actually only possess one other bag of a famous designer but I am worryingly in love still with Mulberry. In those days was a beautiful product but not hip and fashionable. I fell in love with the saddle bag connotations: beautifully crafted, quality leather. I am now the proud owner of several … not quite enough … Mulberry bags.

While I was hunting for a picture to show Husband when I got home this afternoon, I found this lovely site. Check out this orange suede number – I’m in lust.