IT BAG

It bag is a colloquial term from the fashion industry used to describe a brand or type of high priced designer handbag by makers such as Hermes that becomes a popular best seller.

Hermes 'Birkin'

The Birkin has been called the ‘perfect' bag, i.e. once you get one you never want another. Er, is that handbag or Birkin? Victoria Beckham is rather fabulously rumoured to have a room full in every colour. Traditionally low in supply and high in demand you have to wait eight months to six-years for one of these. The story goes, the actress Jane Birkin sat next to Hermes chief exec Jean-Louis Dumas on a Paris to London flight in 1984 and was whinging on about how she couldn't find a decent, chic, weekend bag. He obliged and put her name to it.

Balenciaga 'Lariat

Designer, Nicholas Ghesquière poured his heart and soul into this, distilling his unique vision - Sci-Fi robot, organic forms, 1980's New Romantics, biker girl chic, French classicism - into a distressed leather, inky blue, squishy tote with tassles, zips and rivets. He then dispatched the first thirty to chums, (Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Chloë Sevigny, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Carine Roitfeld), a process known in marketing as ‘seeding'. Happily all these women were "social sparks", in other words instigators, originators and reliable trendsetters, who unanimously gave the Lariat the thumbs-up. No wonder, this has a louche, casual MOD (model-off-duty) look about it. 

Mulberry 'Bayswater'

The flashy Roxanne (or ‘Roxy' as it was called by devotees), lucked out to the less in-your-face, Bayswater (neé 2004), also pioneered by Mulberry's former director Nicholas Knightly, which has emerged as the true bag icon. Stripped of all excess (pockets, rivets, tassles, chains etc), the plain sheet-music style carrier so beloved of Mossy and many more style gurus, is both classy, timeless and classic. But this is not the era to go miniminalist. Proving it can be versatile when required, this season the Bayswater is rolled out in exotic fabrics from shocking pink ostrich (for around £2,000) to sleek bronze mirror metallic for a seasonal look, as well as those gorgeous, very British classic shades mulberry is renown for. This bag is the sort that allows people to communicate without uttering a word. It can be used to impress or rebel, to fit in or stand out. A luxury bag equivalent of a Converse trainer