Finding The Handbag of Dreams

As someone who loves fashion, I am always on the lookout for individual new pieces to add to my wardrobe and whilst I may have been on holiday on my recent trip to Italy, my  inner fashion hunter certainly wasn’t. You never know when you are going to come across crazy, cool pieces and whilst wandering the homeland of Fendi, Gucci and Versace (amongst others) this one certainly took me by surprise.

One of my favourite things to do when on holiday is to find the local market and have a good wander. Be it a food, craft or fashion market, they are all so fascinating and can give you a great flavour of the country or place you are staying. Luckily for me, my parents were on the ball on our most recent venture and spotted that the local town had a market on every Monday. You can probably guess what happened next…

We came across a brilliant vintage stall and hanging on the front of the table was this little bag. I was immediately taken by the texture, which reminded me both of moss (one of my favourite ever plants) and a good old fashioned carpet, and picked it up to have a look. On asking the lady behind the table how much it was I decided it was a bit more than what I wanted to pay and so left it, continued around the market and then went for some proper Italian icecream – what’s your favourite flavour?

Despite my yoghurt-flavoured (not fro-yo) icecream being delicious, I just couldn’t shake the thought of that beautiful bag and how much I might regret it if I left it hanging in the Italian market. After a bit of persuasion, I decided to go back to the stall and after some very confused conversation, in which I just kept saying what I though was twenty in Italian to the vendor, we settled on a price and I took my dream bag away with me.

It is a bowling-bag shape with two zips that come together and join at the top of the bag. In hindsight I have decided that it must actually be a vintage washable because it has all the right pockets inside and is lined with a sort of vinyl material. Personally I loved this because it meant that it was super easy to clean, all I had to do was wipe it down and I was ready to go.

The main body of the bag is made of a canvas material with a tufted moss coloured swirly pattern – didn’t you know how great I am at describing things? As I said before the texture is just magnificent and I love how much personality it has. I certainly have never seen a bag quite like it and that just makes it even more special.

Some may call it fugly (fun & ugly) and some just plain ugly, but for me it doesn’t get much better than my moss bag and I can’t wait style it with my Autumn/ Winter wardrobe. What do you think?