Be Square and Be There!
Back in March during Paris Fashion Week I had a blog about Phoebe Philo and Celine and couldn’t help showing my admiration of Phoebe’s credibility. So recently when I walked into Selfridges ground floor, again I was stopped by the big section of Celine handbag collection. The shop assistance at Celine section was very patient to show me one after another, even after I told her that there’s no way I would buy one in this couple of months, which I think it’s extremely kind.
The new It Bag is small and square and with a long strap… and is cleverly designed with a ‘stick-out’ buckle to press down to open, which is quite different from the traditional magnetic or twist-n-turn opening style. It has 2 different sizes and is made in almost any possible colour and material. The most interesting one is this one with a puzzled-looking surface. I had to request a further detailed explanation from the assistance.
It’s made of Shagreen and from Wikipedia explains it — ‘Shagreen is a type of leather or rawhide consisting of rough untanned skin, formerly made from a horse’s back or that of an onager (wild ass), and typically dyed green. Shagreen is now commonly made of the skins of sharks and rays.’ But it’s made sure that all skins are from farmed animals, which means there’s no rare or nearly distinctive animals being used. For example this one looks like a snake skin. It’s printed and stamped the 3D texture as snake skin, but actually it’s made of calf skin.
The collection is designed extremely thought-through. It’s been consider on some small details but so practical. This electric cornflower one is actually 3 zippy clutch bags snapped together, which can be separated and used individually.
Same detail is used on wallets — a little zipped coin wallet is clipped onto inside of a fold-up wallet — which can be detached and used like a little clutch on a night-out — and it’s contrasted either in colour or in a different material — for example the outside fold-up wallet is in washed black leather and inside zippy clutch is in brown sued. So clever, isn’t it?!!
There’re also some colour blocking leather totes. Orange on tan, black on tan, or most amazingly white sheep skin on black leather.
More pictures from Tommy Ton’s pictures during Paris Fashion Week can be found on Style.com.
