Handbag Trends for 2025

 Dear reader, 

did I surprise you with the title?  

 Trends?  Me?!!   As you know, you won’t find any trends at Chez Pout! 

But I feel inspired to talk about handbags today, though first and foremost I must declare that I am not a designer bag devotee, just in case you were expecting a Birken popping up here!  The nearest I have ever got to so-called “designer devotee” is a small collection of Tula bags from the 90s-00s, but this came about purely because I was drawn to the brand’s simple yet utilitarian styling*.  And I don’t see myself as a handbag person per se.  But back in the day when I worked, and as a result, played a fair bit too, I amassed rather a large collection of bags.  48+.  I know this number because I counted my “stash” during lockdown. I took all my bags that I’d irreverently stuffed into a small cupboard, spread said bags out on the bed, counted them, 48, and then stuffed every one of them back into storage again. The 48 did not include bags that I had in current use, of which they were probably 2-3 idling around the house.  So let’s say 50 is a good number to use as my “collection”. 

So although I do have a rather large “collection” of handbags which I seem to be holding on to for dear life, I don’t actually use them most of the time. These days I prefer pockets. When choosing outer wear and cardigans I immediately zone in on what pocketage is available with that item. I find this method so much easier, freer and safer than toting around a bag each and every day, a bag that could forgetfully be left in the restaurant I parked myself (shoulder straps are an absolute must these days - if I can’t tether it to my body it’s not leaving the house with me!).  And then add to that the further trauma of the contents changeover when switching bags according to the outfit.  Well, a mature lady should not be exposed to these stresses.  It is my firm belief that a pocket can serve all your out-of-house needs … in retirement of course, when working that’s a whole different ball game.

(Is any of this resonating?)

So it was with mild amusement that I read this morning that there are trends for bags, and these trends change on a yearly basis.  Who’dathought?  

I openly admit that the bags I have in my stash date back to the late 80s early 90s in the main, and up to the point I stopped working in the v. early tensies.  Thus you can see in the past decade or so I have not been keeping up with trends in any way.  A few new bags have been acquired since, but that has been on a needs basis rather than trend basis.

So this post on the handbag trends for 2025 was born  from the standpoint of mild curiosity; as you well know you’re not going to get any serious trend advice on this blog!  What trend gene I may have had in my genetic make up rusted obsolete from lack of use some decades ago.  And as we drift into retirement/maturer years, there is a certain freedom in having slipped into a state of mind where we wear anything we want, do anything we want, and think anything we want, n’est pas?  Eating and drinking anything we want is unfortunately the exception as we age. 

Right, enough preamble (waffle), let’s crack on with it, let’s see what the trends are for 2025 in the handbag world, and warning, some have silly names.

I also decided it would be fun to match these current trends against bags I have in my embarrassing stash of unused carryalls, and I think I did rather well. This proves my view that if you hold on to something long enough, you can cut out the middleman, the years in between purchase and it re-trending, and save yourself a fortune and the environment some considerable stress. 

Let’s see how well I did!

1.  Fringed bag.  2.  East West bag.

1. Fringed Bag

I don’t have one. May have had one in the 70s,  but things were transient back then, so first base and I have nothing to offer!   I’m not off to a good start eh?  Best move on.

I don’t think this is the type of fringed bag the fashionistas have in mind!

2.  East West Bag

Seems this style is a straight-across type of bag, east to weat as the crow flies.

 This  much-used Jones bag comes pretty close.

This Tula is perhaps another east-wester, though larger. 

3.  Suede Slouch.  4. The Doctor’s Bag. 

3.  Suede Slouch

This so-called slouch bag looks very much like a tote bag to me, and I guess it serves the same purpose as the bag below, in that it can tote around a fair bit of “stuff”. 

My lovely black tote from Marks has a suede side and a lot of slouch about it,  and as it carries a lot of stuff too I’m calling it my suede slouch, end of. 

Flip it over and it’s leather (how clever is that?!), it’s the Jekyll and Hyde of slouch bags.

This ancient Tula shoulder bag is soft and slouchy, but all leather only so perhaps doesn’t count.  

 4.  Doctors Bag

This is pretty much the Gladstone bag of yore, imo.

This type of bag is designed to hold pretty much everything you’re ever going to need when visiting a poorly patient, or all you’ll ever need in your daily life bar the kitchen sink. 

My brown leather version took me through a good 15 years of “doctoring” (working life). It is capacious so carried all I needed on the go and it fitted beautifully over the shoulder, and heck, brown goes with everything, right?  So, it did. 

I took a pic of it’s protective bag as I couldn’t remember the fancy brand name!

5.  The Doctor’s Bag, again?  6.  Puffy Clutch

5.  Le Sac du Docteur encore une fois ?

I’m attempting a bit of creative subterfuge here, giving you this rough translation in schoolgirl French to create a new name for this one, but it does seem to be reiteration of the doctors bag n’est pas?  Big.  Roomy. 

So I’m using my brown bag again here!

But this old Tula could loosely be stretched as a doctor’s bag, it too is capacious and has lots of compartments so would be useful for toting stethoscopes and the like (I use it for travel though!). 

6.  Puffy Clutch

The Puffy Clutch seems to be something soft and squidgy that provides some form of emotional support if needed by being hugged close to your body.  

I often carried this worn and so soft Jones leather bag close to my body and forgot about the straps; that was the message I got from it so I hope it’s ok with you that I’m calling this my puffy clutch.  But was it emotionally supportive ?  Nah! 

This is another example of puffy slouchy as I often used this Tula Chanel dupe without the metal strap. 

7.  Sculptural Banana Handle

I don’t think I have anything with a metal handle (apart from the metal strapped bags above!!), but this appears to be sort of banana shaped and collects softly at the top through the handle and this one does pretty much the same thing, so I’m using this one as my example here.

Taadaa, I give you banana shaped - ish!

This Jones bag has been a go-to since bought in the early 00s.  

And you can always identify a Mary go-to bag - ink stains on the lining!

*Tula Utilitarian

Here’s a v. battered example of a Tula utilitarian!  You can see this had much use, the little compartments stored all essentials and a strap behind allowed it to be attached to a belt. Useful tethering!

Here’s another example, lots v of compartments, very useful for a working gal on the move. 

Compartments from every angle, that’s why Tula was my go to brand when working, I felt organized … almost!

So dear reader, did I do a good job of matching trend styles to what I already have?

And do you think I’d be viewed as “on trend” when sporting any of these bags in 2025? 😉!!

 

Should you be a bag person and want to read more, you can find the article I read The Daily Telegraph article here and discover what you bag says about you!

And now my lovelies, it’s over to you, what’s your stance on handbags?  How do they fit in the life you lead now?  Are you your own vintage store like me?  Can you match any bags in your stash to the current shapes as I’ve hopefully done?  And where do you stand on designer bags?

I’d love to know!

A la perchoine,

Mary x. 

What I Did in December

Happy new year to you lovely ladies out there. 

I hope you had a lovely Christmas.

Please bear with me as this post is once again a month-long report of what I’ve been doing (not a lot) and what I’ve been wearing (also not a lot).  

You’d better grab yourself a cuppa and get cozy if you’re going to take all of the stuff in in one sitting!

December started with me still getting slowly over my first Covid, so getting prepped and psyched up for Christmas was a bit of a struggle.

Still bleary eyed. 

Seems I managed to get out of November’s slobby clothes early in the month, here wearing a brown cardi and faux leather jeggings with brown boots.  Goodness knows where I was going!

I also mustered up enough energy and enthusiasm to try on my green velvet suit purchase again,  my post-Covid treat.  

I sourced a green Cashmere jumper, half price, from Laredoute, which seemed a good partner for the lovely shade of green; unfortunately throughout the month of December I played postal tennis getting the right size and I didn’t actually get to wear the Cinderella jumper for Christmas, which had been my intention.  

So caution if considering this jumper, go down at least a size, it’s BAGGY!

Green cashmere jumper here, still in sale

I may also pair it with this old print jumper.

A few days into December, and I had an opportunity to dress up in a posh frock!

A black lace dress from Roman paired it with black courts and a dinky little bag that I picked up in a jumble sale about 40 years ago.

 It’s still going strong. It has a lovely silver closure and the silk is beaded. 

It was by a struggle to find something to do with my hair so I simply scragged it back with a few diamanté slides and that seemed to do the trick.

The tables and the room were nicely decorated

The food was superb.

We always overnight for this event as taxis have become so very expensive. I wore a grey cashmere long line jumper (which looks like it had been scrunched in my overnight bag all night !) with black coated jeans, and some form of bootee.

The hotel has multiple eating areas so choosing a spot for breakfast is always fun!

It’s always cozily decorated. 

The event is always held early in December and usually gets me in the mood for Christmas.

The rooms are supplied with a line of toiletries made from local seaweed. I have to say the shower gel and hand wash were simply wonderful and not smelling of seaweed at all! So TP treated me to a set of products when checking out of the hotel. That was a nice early Christmas present!

It had been a stormy night and we returned home to this carnage! Only joking, just a cordyline down and a bin thrown in from the utility area; others were less fortunate. 

A few days later, we had a lunch with TP’s golf mates and partners.

I thought I’d pull out something festive and wore a red cashmere jumper with black faux leather trousers and some sparkly Christmas penguin earrings. The earrings always come out during December for any occasion!

Lunch was at our local pub which has a lovely sea view.

Lunch was very good.

OK, we’re getting a bit of a December theme going here. Lunches!

I wore my green velvet trousers with a fab green sparkly, long sleeved tee (no surprise, it’s now out of stock), which I think was pitched just right for a Christmas lunch with ex-colleagues.

Lunch was at a Harbourside restaurant which always serves superb food.

I have absolutely no idea where I was going on this day, but I must’ve been going somewhere because I wasn’t in the slobby clothes! Black V-neck cashmere jumper over a cream thermal top, and my uniform coated jeggings 

Sadly, I attended the funeral of a very dear friend mid December. A lunch had previously been booked immediately after the funeral so I had to wear my festive outfit covered with this extremely long black coat.  It’s a cashmere mix and extremely warm, but looking at the photo, I see that it’s also extremely long!  I see film of stylish ladies on YouTube wandering around snowy Stockholm streets wearing ankle length coats, but it does seem a little overkill on warmer Guernsey streets so I may have to rethink this coat …

Under my black coat I wore a sparkly burgundy V-neck jumper and coated jeans. This little combo tends to be something I pull out every Christmas, so comfy, so simple and yet sooo festive. The sparkly penguin earrings came out too!

I layered a lace cami under the jumper.

I never tired of wearing this simple combo.

We take the bus when going into town for lunch throughout the year, and December is no exception. Here I am at the bus stop with a Uniqlo down coat and beret to protect me from what the weather was throwing at me.

TP enjoys a good bus ride too!

The bus service is good and the whole experience fun. Not least because it is an opportunity to peak into peoples gardens from an elevated position and pick up tips.

This occasion was a sibs and partners Christmas lunch.

And then that evening, Friday 13th, I came down with a cold. A fluey cold/chill, which seems to have come from hell and hung around for a couple of weeks, keeping me in bed for three of those days. Yuck! But not yuck, because I was able to read and watch films, and that ain’t bad eh. 

One of the casualties from the fluey cold that wiped out the second half of my December was that I didn’t have much enthusiasm to be imaginative with my Christmas cake this year as all I could muster was a load of marzipan and fondant icing embellished with stars and some rather badly applied edible gold dust. 

Unfortunately, only me and TP eat the stuff in our near family so we will find ourselves eating Christmas cake into February!  But it is a good cake so no prob.  

Fortunately, I’d managed to get Christmas cards out early before the cold apathy hit me.   

Doesn’t TP look cute with plaits!

As with Covid, I found that my appetite suffered again with this fluey cold and I found little enthusiasm for food - can you believe this plate of simple fare actually got my taste buds working?!!

Maybe it was the prolonged COVID/cold or maybe it’s simply old age, but I really couldn’t muster up enthusiasm to decorate the house. Half the decorations that came down from the loft went back up again.

I only lit up the plant containers a few days before Christmas! That’s how apathetic I had become. 

Our Christmas tree was absolutely huge this year and needed to be cut down to fit into the room, so I took the cut branches and shoved them into plant containers and covered the whole lot with battery fairy lights. The effect was simple yet actually very pleasing, I’d even like to say elegant, but I think that might be stretching it.  However, I did like this rush job and will do a variation on this next year. 

Where do you stand on Christmas decorations?

And on Christmas Eve I got up bright eyed and bushy tailed and dressed in festive burgundy (yet again) to collect the Christmas day lunch bits and bobs from the butcher. Stuffed rolled turkey, pigs in blankets and apricot stuffing. I cook these things on Christmas Day morning and take them round to the son‘s house just a couple of minutes’ away. His family then take care of the rest of the catering for lunch and for the rest of the day. The system works well and shares the cooking.

How do you handle family Christmas lunch?

The butcher is located along the coast from us and it’s a lovely drive there and back, so makes quite an occasion out of a simple meat pick up.

Doesn’t TP look happy and proud of himself!

Proud because he cleared his Christmas lunch plate which is quite a rare occasion for him these days so well done TP.

For Christmas Day, I again wore what had rapidly become my Christmas outing uniform. Green velvet trousers and sparkly green top.

If you don’t already have velvet trousers, I strongly suggest you consider them as a purchase for winter. They are extremely comfy and warm and turn a simple pairing of clothes into an occasion outfit with no effort whatsoever. The kind of outfit I like!

We were greeted at son’s house by lovely canapés made by granddaughter, and champagne. 

Didn’t she do well?!

I asked if she was available for hire for parties as she did an excellent job with these little morsels of deliciousness. 

Christmas Day was wonderful.  We ate (a lot!), shared super presents, played lots of games, shared laughter! And of course, most importantly, we were together.  

A perfect Christmas Day.

There followed a few days of absolute slob out! At home in PJs, doing nothing other than putting together plates of leftovers to fill our tums.

And then it was hell for leather again as I prepared a buffet for 20 odd family members for the Christmas gathering of our clan. Of course I always over cater and give myself too much work and promise I’ll be easier on myself next year.  

Let’s hope this December I’ll remember!

It’s always worth the effort, as it’s wonderful to see all generations, mixing and chatting away and having a good old-fashioned catch up.

TP and I had a very quiet New Year’s Eve, where we ate shop bought nibbles, sipped a couple of glasses of sparkly, and then managed to see in 8 o’clock!  

Do you find your bedtime gets earlier and earlier as the years pass?

How did you celebrate the new year?

New Year’s Day was absolutely wonderful.

Lunch with the family at son’s house. 

Posing alongside the Christmas tree in burgundy coated jeans and a black cashmere polo neck, jumper, and cozy furry boots.

(Gosh, did I only wear cashmere in December?!)

We then walked to said house and sat down to a super cold table of tasty filled sandwiches, party nibbles and an amazing raspberry pistachio roulade to finish, followed by an afternoon of even more hilariously fun family games. 

And then the day after, 2 January, the inevitable happened. The tree was stripped of its glory, and the house cleared inside and out of what decorations made it on display. 

Here it is with its clothes off.

We’re thinking possibly next year to invest in an artificial tree for several reasons.  But then, we often think that and then quickly forget for next year *!

Are you a real tree, family or artificial? I’d love to know. And if you are of the artificial ilk, perhaps you could recommend a type that you think works best.

*STOP PRESS: I didn’t forget - I nabbed a bargain lit artificial tree in the garden centre sale today.  However it was a false economy, the tree is too bulky and heavy to squeeze through the loft opening so now I need to buy another shed to store it in!

I spotted a blackbird feasting on rock hard figs left on the tree. Saddened by this site, I headed off to the garden centre and bought various types of suet and fat hanging dispensers for the birds. These were hung on the fig tree and ceanothus near the house. Unfortunately I haven’t seen one single bird eat from them yet. Maybe those rock hard figs are tasty after all. 

And rounding things up I just wanted to share with you these little presents I bought for a secret Santa last Sunday. I had to buy three gifts of maximum 5 pounds for a girlie lunch. I managed to find this lovely tortoiseshell glass vase, a spiced hand wash, and two candles in pottery containers at the garden centre. I think I did very well working within the budget. 

So that, my dear friends, is my December with a tiny bit of January thrown in!

It was a December of three halves, meals out, then poorly and inactive, and rounded off with lots of family fun. 

I hope to get my act together this year to write better article-based and shorter posts and certainly more frequently. 

This is just one of many goals for 2025. 

Do you set yourself goals at the beginning of the year?  I don’t like the word “resolution” as that implies willpower, and that gene passed me by.  But new year aspirations seems to work for me.

Thank you for bearing with me as I attempted to build up my blog during the latter months of 2024. 

I will get my act together in 2025! 

Again, wishing you a very, very happy new year, 

A la perchoine,

Mary xx.