Our Top Picks

Ashwood Leather Real Leather Vintage Medium Handbag In Grey
DOROTHY PERKINS UK Ashwood Leather Real Leather Vintage Medium Handbag In Grey
£67.50 DOROTHY PERKINS UK
Women's Handbag Guess Triple Evie
MADE IN PARADIS UK Women's Handbag Guess Triple Evie
£93.37 MADE IN PARADIS UK
ROCOCO Style Lolita Bag Coffee Brown Polyester Flowers Bows Polyester Fiber Handbag Lolita Accessories
MILANOO UK ROCOCO Style Lolita Bag Coffee Brown Polyester Flowers Bows Polyester Fiber Handbag Lolita Accessories
£31.15 MILANOO UK

A handbag does important work. It keeps your day together, travels everywhere with you and is silently judged every time you walk into the room. It’s quite a lot to ask of a single object. That’s why settling for the wrong bag is so much more irritating than most people let on. If it’s too small you are constantly leaving things behind. If it’s too fussy it won’t go with half your wardrobe. If it’s trendy enough to wear now, it’ll look dated before you’ve even broken it in properly. Organising this edit was easy, because we started by eliminating bags that perpetuated all those problems. Instead we looked for bags with enough structure to look curated but enough versatility to handle whatever you throw at them. We lean heavily on bags that will earn their keep on a regular Tuesday too. You know the kind; not just weekends, birthdays and nights out. Bags that can keep up when everything else in your life is keeping up. As you’ll see from what we’ve selected, these bags cover all of that ground. They contain tote shapes that are roomy without being sack-like, shoulder bags that actually sit on your shoulder and crossbody styles that will stay put when you need them to. Evening bags too that are small but not impossible. We have been deliberately picky about every single bag we’ve added because this category is vast and most of it isn’t worthy of your time (or money). We think a lot about proportion. More than one bag that photographs well has ended up in my hands only to look completely wrong IRL because the scale was off. And let’s be honest, scale is only something you appreciate when you actually have to carry a bag around with you. We have also paid close attention to hardware and lining and more importantly how closures actually work. These are the details that will let you know whether or not your bag is going to autumn apart after six months of normal wear or actually last for years. Some of the bags here are legitimate investments you’ll keep coming back to year after year. Others will costs you very little but look far more expensive than they actually are. We believe both have their place in a curated wardrobe and we’ve never bought into the idea that spending more = automatically getting better. Here’s our standard. We would carry it, ourselves. Regularly. Without hesitation.