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Womens Vintage Leather Bags

March 4, 2015

If your main interest in London fashion week is in scrutinizing what the models are carrying in their hands or dangling from a shoulder – and by that I mean a bag, although I admit it can sometimes be a puppy or placard, then, unless you’re possessed of several thousands of pounds, I suggest you go handbag shopping for Womens vintage leather bags, which in their inventiveness, design quality and interesting materials totally rival what new designers have to offer without the matching price tag.

Vintage Leather Bags for Women

Plus, if you feel at all troubled about the idea of buying crocodile skin or the hide of some rare, now banned animal, yet your hesitation is mingled with a stubborn sort of desire, you’ll find women’s vintage leather bags much more acceptable, as the creatures involved are incontrovertibly dead, and have been for half a century or more.

What kind of Womens vintage leather bags can I get?

If you’re a bag lover you’ll probably have a good idea of what kind of bag you’re looking for: for a ladylike structured bag go for the Eighties, Forties or Fifties section. This is for a Maggie Thatcher fan, an admirer of Jackie Onassis, or a would-be Hitchcock Heroine. You wouldn’t find any of those precise and icy ladies lugging around a massive baggy tote.

 

However, if you need somewhere to put your laptop and its charger, umbrella, scarf, sandwiches and tissues, look for a more roomy bag. In the Seventies they did a nice line in fringed suede, and in the Eighties you get fun, practical fake leather bags and backpacks.

 

If you’re looking for something jolly which will stand out, there are lots of Sixties bags that will fit. They’re not necessarily structured but still quite small, so to carry your travel pass and lip balm you can get a purse or little bag in space age silver or white patent leather.

 

For something less frivolous in tone, look for black leather bags with sculptured shapes. Some come with rubber spikes or other interesting decorations.

Womens Vintage Leather Bags - leather bag from Blue17

women’s vintage leather bag from Blue17

If you’re looking for a particular designer, like Chanel, you might be very lucky and find an original vintage Chanel bag, but you’ll certainly find hundreds of Chanel style copies, with gold chain handles and a quilted effect.

vintage Chanel snakeskin purse from Blue17

vintage Chanel snakeskin purse from Blue17

Taking care of womens vintage leather bags

To look after your women’s vintage leather bags you can gently wipe off any scuff marks. Obviously don’t get the bag soaking wet. You can use boot polish to restore it to a gleam but watch out, because the colour can transfer. Instead of this, look for leather feed, which will help restore a cracked bag to suppleness, or neutral polish. If a bag is a lightish colour and stained, you can dye it to a darker colour to hide that. Don’t automatically go for black, but consider if you could make a light grey bag into a dark blue-grey with the addition of blue dye, or a beige bag into green. There are good ranges of acrylic dyes which provide more coverage than traditional ones and come in a wider range of shades, so look for these for your best range of options.

 

Shop Women’s vintage bags and purses

 

 

 

Grace Kelly and her matching handbag

Vintage-Vogue-Paris-Jackie-O

Joni Mitchell – very likely to accessorize with a fringed leather bag

These sixties women only carried tiny handbags, because they kept everything else back in the spacecraft

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