Handbags Achieve Star Status : Offer Feast of Color, Texture

In simpler times, women’s handbags were demure accessories relegated to the back benches of fashion where they were governed by two simple rules. One, handbag and shoes had to match. Two, summer handbags were white.

“Those days are gone, gone, gone,” says Debbie Bohnett, spokeswoman for Neiman Marcus in Fashion Island.

Judging by this year’s summer collection, the humble handbag has finally evolved from fashion afterthought to fashion statement. Flamboyant and innovative designers such as Sharif and Carlos Falchi have transformed the timid clutch into a movable feast of color, texture and shape.

This summer’s handbag message: the more attention-grabbing the better.

Shapes run the gamut from oversized totes and circular draw-strings to slouchy hoboes and barrel shapes. Textures are even more varied. Lacquered straws, pearlized metallics and boldly striped canvas are touted as this season’s newest looks.

But it is leather--woven, gathered, wrinkled, appliqued, fringed, tasseled and layered--that is the star of what has been dubbed the season of the “multimedia” handbag. Combinations of buffalo leather, whip snake, anaconda, python and faux alligator dominate the season’s accent on texture.

Italian designer Braccialina has created a singular line of soft casual totes in canvas and leathers in rich earth and spice tones. The bags, priced in the $300 range, are trimmed and fringed in leather and decorated with hand-sewn charms, antique coins and colored beads. Furla has also chosen burnished browns as the signature color of their summer bags, which are invariably trimmed with lush-looking mock crocodile.

White, the much maligned classic mainstay of summer, is once again a favorite with designers who have revamped its staid image. Carlos Falchi uses white as a background for his lively appliques of both gold and bright color. Other designers have fringed, woven, gathered and wrinkled their white handbags and then studded them with diamantes, sequins and multiple textures of snake over suede over kid.

The season’s dominating colors, however, are the brights--lots of them. Both Falchi and Sharif have created lines of multicolored handbags in the $300 neighborhood that are literally mini-media events. Yellows, and orange, jade greens and blood reds, turquoise and purple are combined in “theme” handbags that sport everything from tropical fruit designs to nautical motifs to abstract creations of color upon color, shape upon shape.

Sharif has also combined hot pink, lavender, orange, saffron, red and turquoise into an exotic line of Arabian-themed handbags that are detailed in gold and set off with jewelled tassels.

So intricate, so dominating and so singular is the impact of one of these multimedia handbags that they themselves are fast becoming the fashion statement around which women build their wardrobes. They choose solid-color outfits--often black or white, or one of the dominant colors from the handbag--which will showcase the handbag rather than compete with it.

“Buying a handbag is a very different purchasing concept from what it was 10 years ago,” Bohnett says. Gone are the days when a woman would buy one handbag at the beginning of the season to go with all her outfits. Now she is more likely to consider a handbag as an accent item and buy two or three on a whim . . . which is why most handbag sections are adjacent to jewelry and scarf offerings in department stores.

For those women schooled in the old ways, however, there is still one nagging question--what shoes could possibly go with this season’s multicolored, multitextured handbags? Bohnett suggests selecting one color from the handbag for a solid-colored shoe that will complement the colors in their summer wardrobe.

“Sometimes just that one solid color will make it work and pull it all together,” she says.