IS IT SO WRONG OF ME to want a bit of fringe in my life? Specifically a fringey crossbody bag I can wear for walking the dog in summer, when I don’t have pockets for house keys, car key, cellphone, driver’s license, a credit card and plastic poop bags (yes, more than one). Is it out there? Did I miss its moment?
I still feel a pang when I think of the buckskin jacket my sister had in college, fringe marching down the outer seam of the sleeves and, if memory serves, across the jacket front as well. (Hell, she probably still has it–and still fits into it!)
But I don’t feel the need for the full-court fringe press. Just a swish of the stuff would work for me.
I began looking, online, a couple of months ago. Early on I found a pert little Rebecca Minkoff crossbody bag in a weird pinkish shell color. It was $195, and I realized it was too small for the job only after I had destroyed the zipper by getting a New York Times plastic delivery sleeve jammed in it. One down. (Anyone want it?)
A couple of weeks ago, MLB ran a Haute Hippie story, and one of the items shown was a Saint Laurent suede crossbody bag with fringe and even feathers. But at $1,490, it just seemed a bit silly, at least for walking the dog. I found a similar one last week–$1,790. Even sillier.
When I started hunting there didn’t seem to be much out there, but things heated up a couple of weeks ago, and I saw at least a dozen possibilities. But I was particularly interested in a couple of examples at Target. So last week I ran over to the Potomac Yard (Alexandria, Va.) Target–it’s open till midnight!–and found a simple little black fringed bag that had enough size and enough fringey swish. At $34.99, it was about one-10th the price of the Kate Spade New York bag I found at Saks.com.
And the Kate Spade doesn’t even have the jaunty little tag that hangs from my new Mossimo Supply Co. bag: “Genuine Suede Trim.” (The body of the bag is genuine “Non-Leather Material.”)
Okay, maybe I should have sprung for the Saint Laurent but, as I say, the dog doesn’t care.
–Nancy McKeon