A letter from a reader

At 63, I carried the same black winter purse through ten Texas summers

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear.

But three different women asked me about a bag at the farmers market on Saturday, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

First, the confession. Look at any summer photograph of me from the last ten years. Sundress, sandals, iced tea in hand, and over my shoulder, every single time, the same heavy black leather purse, sitting there like a raincloud at a picnic.

A hundred degrees out, and my purse was dressed for a board meeting in January.

I knew it looked wrong. I carried it anyway, summer after summer, because it was the only serious bag I owned, and I had my reasons for never replacing it.

Why the summer bags never won

It was not that I had never tried. Every few years I would pick up one of those straw beach totes, and every time, the same story.

No lining, so my keys worked their way through the weave. No pocket, so my phone lived at the bottom under the sunscreen. Handles that stretched into spaghetti by July. A bag-shaped decoration, not a bag.

Somewhere along the way, the bag makers decided that serious means leather, and summer means flimsy, and a woman who wanted both could go on wanting. So the black purse kept its job, and my summers kept their raincloud.

Then I saw one at the farmers market

In June, at the market, there was a woman ahead of me at the peach stand with an ivory crochet tote over her shoulder, brown leather-look straps, beautiful open weave, clearly handmade. Lovely, I thought, another pretty bag that loses your keys.

Then she opened it to pay, and I saw the inside. Fully lined. A zipper. A proper pocket. I abandoned my peaches and asked her about it on the spot.

It is from Iris & Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and it is called the Clare. I ordered one that evening, still half-expecting a beach toy.

What arrived is a real bag that happens to be summer. The crochet is handwoven with a beautiful open pattern, the kind people assume came from an artisan market abroad. It is a generous fourteen inches wide, so everything I carried in the black purse moved straight across. And inside is the part that won me over, a full soft cream lining with a zipper and a pocket for my keys, so nothing shows through the weave and nothing falls out.

The brown straps are stitched and riveted and sit properly on the shoulder. It is, in every way that matters, my black purse, reborn as something that belongs in July.

What happened at the market

Its first proper outing was the farmers market on Saturday, with a sundress and flat sandals.

Three different women asked me about it, one of them at the very peach stand where this whole story started, which felt like poetry. And Sue, who I have known for twenty years, opened it up and inspected the lining like a customs officer before announcing, well, that is actually a real bag. High praise, from Sue.

But the part I keep coming back to is the photographs my husband took that morning. Sundress, sandals, peaches, and for the first time in ten years, a bag that belongs in the picture. The whole outfit looks lighter. I look lighter.

It has since done a church potluck and a porch supper, and it has been admired at both, which the black purse never once managed in a decade of service.

Three things I have learned since

One. The lining is everything. That is the entire difference between a summer bag you trust and a summer bag you humor. Keys in the pocket, phone findable, nothing peeking through the weave. Pretty is easy. Lined is what makes it a purse.

Two. It upgrades every outfit around it. A plain sundress with this bag reads as put together. The ivory goes with everything I own, and the brown straps make the whole thing look expensive, which at $49.95 it has no right to.

Three. There are two colors. The natural ivory and a khaki. I have the ivory, and I am watching the khaki the way Sue watches a sale rack.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Clare is $49.95. It was $100.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because handwoven bags with leather-look straps in the nice boutiques start well north of that.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to move the season's stock.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “Looks handmade and expensive, holds everything, and nothing falls through because of the lining. I get compliments every time I carry it.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on the porch with an iced tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

Go look at your summer photographs and find your purse in them. If the same dark winter bag is hanging off your shoulder in every one, then you have been making the same trade I made for ten years, seriousness over season, and it turns out nobody was actually asking you to choose.

Not because a bag changes anything. It does not. But summer is the prettiest few months we get, and there is a small happiness in every single thing you carry belonging to it.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and these go quicker than you would think. And once this stock is gone, it is gone.

My summer finally has its own purse.

Peggy