It’s almost Memorial Day and that means…

it’s time to think about your summer handbag.  For the past few years I’ve used a trio of  fabric ones, and I do still love them, but when I spotted the basket bag above in a thrift store last week, I decided I had to add it to the mix.

When I was around 7 or 8, I had my first exposure to the power of the desirable brand name.   This was in the early/mid 1960s, way before the advent of designer jeans and the explosion of designer logos.  Most of the clothes in my family were bought at Sears, mainly because my father had worked there in the early 1950s, and his old friends there still gave him the employee discount.  So to me, clothes were just, well, clothes.

But on the school bus, one learned all kinds of fascinating things from the high school girls.  What I learned one day was that all handbags were not created equal.

One of the girls had gotten a John Romain handbag for her birthday.  All the other girls were so impressed that her bag had a name, but I couldn’t see why she named her bag John, and what the big deal about it was.   As usual, my older cousin Nancy came to my rescue, and explained that John Romain was the brand name, like Chevrolet and Frigidaire and RCA were brand names.  I had no idea!

But I started noticing, and saw that other ladies were carrying John Romain handbags, which I noticed had a little shield symbol.  I also noticed that there were lots of other bags that looked like the John Romain ones, but without the identifying symbol.  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that John’s bags were much better than the ones that merely looked like John.

The point was really driven home in junior high, when some of my classmates came to school carrying John Romain bags.  Suddenly, there were two classes of girls – those that had a John Romain bag, and those that did not.  By the time I got to high school in 1970, the bag of choice was Etienne Aigner, which was identified by a little horseshoe-shaped A and the rich dark red color.  It seemed like the goal of many girls was just to own an Aigner handbag!

So there it is, how the It Bag got its start, at least in Canton, North Carolina.

My new bag is not an It Bag, not a John Romain, nor an Aigner.  But a quick web search confirmed that both companies made very similar bags.  Mine is a copy, but ironically, so were the name brands.  These are copies of the Nantucket basket. 

There were many different straw and leather combination handbags made in the 60s, and today they are easy to find in online vintage shops and even in thrift stores.  If you are looking for one, be picky.  Make sure the straw is still in good condition and that the leather straps are strong.  And unless you don’t do leather, don’t settle for a faux leather one, as they usually look pretty cheap.