I am 63 and the first handbag I have ever written a letter about is covered in sequin flowers the color of fall
I am 63 and the first handbag I have ever written a letter about is covered in sequin flowers the color of fall
Six things this little shoulder bag gets right that forty-five years of good bags kept in boxes and everyday bags that look like a grocery sack got wrong, from a woman who is already choosing her second.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Let me put my name to this before anything else. I am Peggy, I am 63, I live in Austin, Texas with my husband Frank, and in forty-five years of buying handbags I have never once written to a store about one. I have owned good bags and I have owned useful bags, and I have never owned a bag that was both, so there was never anything to write about. Well. There is now.
The bag I am writing about is the Harvestbloom, one of the floral sequin shoulder bags from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly making the ordinary things a little lovelier for a few years now. There are fourteen designs in the collection, all the same neat little shoulder bag, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw it at our community theater, on the woman in the row in front of us at the fall musical. When intermission came she stood up, tucked a little bag of sequin flowers under her arm and went out for a cup of coffee, and I watched it catch the lights all the way up the aisle. By the second act I had lost track of the plot entirely. In the line at the coffee table I asked her about it, plainly. Read on.
On the hook by the front door, next to Frank’s cap. It has not been put away in a box once.
Here is what forty-five years of handbags taught me. They come in two piles. The good bags, the little evening ones you are given as presents, that live in their dust bags in the bottom of the closet because they will not take your glasses case and you are frightened of spoiling them. And the everyday bags, the big sensible ones that hold everything and look, if we are honest, like something you would carry the potatoes home in.
A bag was either too good to use or too plain to look at. I had stopped expecting there to be anything in between.
This little bag is the first thing I have owned that sits right in between, and having carried it to a birthday lunch, a Sunday dinner and a night at the movies in the space of three weeks, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I half expected it to look cheap out of the mailer. It did not.
The flowers are sewn on, not printed
This is the thing you notice first, and it is the thing that makes it look more expensive than it is. The whole front is covered in flowers made of tiny sequins and stitching, laid over a textured woven background. There is one big golden flower across the top, a cluster of berry pink and gold sequins in the corner, and a white flower and a little blue one stitched in underneath, with dark green leaves filling the gaps. They are the colors of a fall garden, and you can run your finger over every petal. Nothing about it looks mass produced, and everybody who has seen it has wanted to touch it.
Under the lamp of an evening. The golden flower is my favorite part.
I was expecting a flat print with a bit of glitter. It is real sequin flowers, stitched on, and it looks like I paid a great deal more.
Margaret H., ColumbusIt sparkles when the light finds it, and settles down when it does not
I was worried about the sequins. I did not want to walk into Sunday dinner looking like the angel off the top of the tree. What I found is that the sparkle behaves itself. In ordinary daylight it reads as a pretty floral bag with a bit of shine to it. Under the lights at the theater, or the lamps in a restaurant, the sequins wake up and catch every bit of light going. It is the same bag for a morning in town and an evening out, and it never once looks like it is trying too hard.
Subtle enough for church in the morning and just right at the country club dinner in the evening. That is exactly what I wanted and could never find.
Pauline K., WhartonIt tucks under your arm and leaves both hands free
It has one short shoulder strap, and that is the whole trick of it. The bag sits snug under your arm, close to your side, so you have a hand for your coffee and a hand for the railing, which at my age is not a small consideration. The woman at the theater went the length of the coffee line, paid, and carried her cup and her cookie back to her seat without once putting either down. The back of the bag is plain smooth tan, so the side against your coat is quiet and the flowers face out.
Sits under my arm like it was made for it. Glass in one hand, plate in the other at my grandson’s wedding, and not once did I have to put my bag down.
Sheila B., El CampoIt zips right across the top
I have lost more lipsticks to open handbags than I care to count. This one has a zipper that runs the full length of the top, so when it is closed it is closed, and nothing slides out when you bend down for your coat or set it on the floor under your seat at the movies. It sounds like a small thing to write about. It is the reason I stopped checking my bag every five minutes.
It holds what an evening actually needs
I want to be honest about the size, because it matters. It is 10.8 inches across, a little shorter than a school ruler, 5.5 inches tall and 2.4 inches deep. That is a small shoulder bag, not a clutch and not a tote. Into mine go my glasses in their case, my wallet, my phone, my keys, a lipstick and a folded tissue, and it still zips shut without a struggle. Inside it is lined with a smart brown and cream stripe.
The test every evening bag I have owned has failed. My glasses case goes in, with room to spare.
Finally an evening bag that takes my reading glasses. Wallet, phone, keys and glasses, and it still closes. I have been looking for years.
Valerie D., Bay CityThere are fourteen of them, and they all look like somebody picked the flowers
The Harvestbloom is one of fourteen designs in the collection, all the same little shoulder bag, all the same price. There is a berry red one called the Scarletbloom, a deep plum and sage one called the Autumnmeadow, blues, lilacs, a soft pink, a navy and a gold, each with its own flowers. I chose the Harvestbloom because it looks like the end of September in a garden. The Autumnmeadow is next on my list, and the Scarletbloom is already ordered and hidden in the closet for my sister Sue at Christmas. She does not know yet.
It came along with us in the camper for the last weekend at the lake. Frank made the coffee.
I bought the gold one for my daughter’s fortieth and ended up ordering myself the red. It was too hard to choose just one.
Jean T., EdnaThis little bag, against the ones you have been making do with
You can carry on with the good bag in the box and the big bag on the hook, like I did for forty-five years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Too small for your glasses case
Kept in a box for fear of spoiling them
A clasp that springs open at the wrong moment
Something to hold, so one hand is always full
Either very plain or far too much
Glasses, wallet, phone and keys, zipped in
Hung on the hallway hook and used every week
A zipper right across the top
Tucks under your arm, both hands free
Sequin flowers that sparkle only when the light finds them
About the price
The Harvestbloom is $54.95, down from $110.00, and every design in the collection is the same.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are on sale right now, and once this stock is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than $110.00 on handbags that lived in a box, so $54.95 for one I actually carry every week made it an easy yes.
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.
Next to the last of Frank’s dahlias. I did say it was the color of fall.
If you have a good bag in a box that you never dare use and a plain bag on the hook that you never want to, this is where I would start. Have a look at the designs before somebody else takes the one you like, because the pretty ones will not wait. And if you see a woman at the theater with sequin flowers under her arm, it might be me.
Peggy
THE FLORAL SHOULDER BAG COLLECTION
- Floral sequins and stitched flowers on the front
- Sparkles under the lights, quiet by day
- One short strap, sits snug under the arm
- Full-length top zipper
- 10.8 × 5.5 × 2.4 in, takes a glasses case, wallet and phone
- Fourteen designs, $54.95 whichever you choose
- Free shipping
Sale on now. The popular designs are already going.