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Logan's Style Watch
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SHOPPING BAGS
by Logan Bentley Lessona
ROME, December 17, 2000 -Unless you're doing all your Christmas shopping at home using Internet, or from the catalogs that stuff your mailbox, you've been hitting the malls and taking home your goodies in a variety of shopping bags.
Most people probably toss them in the trash after removing the contents and don't pay that much attention to this ubiquitous item of modern life. The beautifully designed shopping bag was not always around although we take them for granted today. Some are almost works of art.
Even the plastic grocery bag is relatively new. When I first went to live in France in a small village, where you did your marketing almost every day, you either carried a basket or an expandable gizmo made from string to put your groceries.
I think I started collecting shopping bags some years ago when I sold factory-reject Diane Von Furstenberg dresses from my home to a list of clients that included movie stars and wives of rich industrialists. I couldn't expect them to go home carrying their dresses in their hands, right?
But as the Italian shopping bags got prettier and more elegant I found myself loath to part with some. So I started keeping the Fendis (light beige plastic printed to look like parchment), which at Christmas became shiny red with a black and white drawing by Karl Lagerfeld of Santa Claus tip-toeing up the stairs with his sack on his back.
They, and others, are handy for taking clothes to the dry cleaner, carrying Sunday's newspaper so you don't get printer's ink on your hands, or your lunch for the office, and even for extras if you bought too many souveniers on a trip.
For decades in the United States swanky department stores like Nieman Marcus,
Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord and Taylor, and Barney's have always put purchases in stylish paper bags. Back in the sixties Bloomingdale's started paying particular attention, changing colors and designs with the seasons, when they were trying to attract the baby boomers of the time. I think they were called the Saturday Generation because they were encouraged to spend the day in the store shopping until they dropped.
I've always loved the instantly-recognizable Tiffany tote in robin's egg blue (or is it pale turquoise?) with just the Tiffany name printed in black. Not long ago I was given a small Bulgari bag, black with handles in gold rope. (No plastic or string handles for Bulgari, thank you very much!) Mont Blanc also puts its pens in shiny black totes, as elegant as the pens.
Fiorucci, whose big store in Milan has become a combination of department store-bazaar, puts its trademark angel faces on slick baby blue paper, whereas Armani, the epitome of minimalism most of the time, uses sand-colored paper with dark brown cords and Giorgio Armani discreetly printed in the same color.
The Hermes bright burnt-orange bag discreetly printed in black with the Hermes name and logo probably clashes with whatever you wear but that doesn't seem to bother the ladies who proudly carry them along with their four-figure "Kelly" handbags.
Henri Bendel, the ultra-specialty department store (forget shopping there if you were anything higher than a size 8!) has never abandoned their signature vertically striped black and white bag with the name printed on white label in the middle.
The bags from gift shops in museums tell the world you're an intellectual, and the bright blue number from the Whitney Museum of American Art with an American flag printed on the innter fold is most distinctive.
The newly re-launched Burberry's has a zippy, youthful advertising campaign in the magazines but they are sticking to the traditional wide bag with long black straps so you can sling it over your shoulder and their inimitable tan, black, white, and red plaid.
British designer Paul Smith, who makes colorful and unique clothes for men and women, sends them out of the shop carrying a large bag in stripes with as many colors as Joseph's coat.
A children's store in Rome, Age d'Or, pays homage to its customers with a pink and pale turquoise bag shaped like a house, with a closure on top simulating the roof. Fun for playing with at home.
Jeweler Gianni Bulgari used to walk around downtown Rome carrying zillions of dollars worth of jewels in a white plastic grocery bag which never aroused suspicions with the baddies. He may never have been robbed, but he was one of the first rich people (just after Paul Getty's grandson) to be kidnapped in Italy back in the seventies. Since he was the better-known Bulgari, who had squired about the likes of Candy Bergen and Gina Lollobrigida, the news made papers around the world. It was an unpleasant experience, to say the least, but it made Bulgari an international name and no doubt contributed to the explosive growth of the company.
© 2000 Logan Bentley Lessona
Syndicated by ParadigmTSA
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Fashion and Design from Italy has been on the web since February 1995. It was the first ever web about fashion. We're working on a new section about Italian Design - industrial design that includes furniture, ceramics, bathrooms, home and office accessories, automobiles and other articles that have won prizes throughout the world and are exhibited in museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
