Fashion Brief
The second most important thing about the saddle bag is that it is terrifically fashionable right now. The best thing about it is that it’s a dream to wear, because it is a bag designed to be carried.
This sounds a ridiculous thing to say – surely, all bags are designed to be carried? – but it’s not, sadly. Many trophy handbags are designed exactly that way round: as trophies first and handbags second. They are beautiful objects to be sighed over and stroked – the handles are an afterthought. The thing is, you don’t notice this when you experimentally dangle the bag, stuffed with tissue paper, over your shoulder in a shop. You will, however, notice it the next day, when it becomes evident that the bag, now heavy and full, won’t stay on your shoulder without you hunching your shoulders up to your ears, or can’t be relied on to stay closed, and has to be clamped under one arm. Or that internal pockets have been sacrificed to a clean-lined minimal design, which leaves you scrabbling around for your lip balm in a very non-clean-lined-and-minimal fashion.
The saddle bag, however, is nigh-on ergonomically perfect. It is relatively flat, which means that the weight sits against your body, rather than tipping you over to one side. It is structured without having sharp corners. It isn’t open at the top, and it doesn’t have too much bruising hardware. In other words, it is practical without being too practical.
If a handbag is overly sensible, you will never really love it, not in the pupil-dilating sense. The ideal bag needs to be perfectly calibrated between practicality and glamour, because the truly useful bag is the one you love enough to carry all the time – even when it’s not quite right for an evening, or when it is slightly too small to carry everything you need – because this saves you chopping and changing and finding you’ve left your phone charger in the pocket of the bag you used yesterday.
A handbag needs to be practical, but it also needs sufficient glamour to keep you hooked. It should buoy you, even as it weighs you down. Don’t commit to anything less.
• Jess wears chartreuse dress, £139, hobbs.co.uk. Olive saddle bag, £22, next.co.uk. Tan chunky sandals, £65, dunelondon.com.
Photograph: David Newby for the Guardian. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Sharon Ive for Carol Hayes Management.
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