pelle recycled designer footwear & accessories - sold on consignment - bought by appointment

The ideal handbag, like a beautiful shoe, is not about necessity or practicality, it is about the stuff dreams and desires are made of. It's a bit like falling in love or being infatuated, once that portable fashion object has captured our attention, it's almost impossible to resist it.

The insatiable greedy desire takes over and the "it" bag de jour seems to be what we need to complete ourself with. The way we carry it can subconsciously transport us into the lives we secretly wish we were living.

A house for a mobile life, packed with essentials and inessentials

The contents of a vintage handbag form the most reliable time capsules and definitely the most honest. The inside tells equally, but secretively, where the wearer has been or wish to have been.

Clutching the trusty companion, touches surreal neediness - especially once personalised and marked with life, cherished and protected - a good bag becomes an intimate extension of the body.

Psychiatrists have always held the bag in suspicion, imagining it to be a 'vagina dentata' - the only place a man's hands are unwelcome.

image: pelle specialises in designer shoes, jewellery, bags and accessories from 1950s through to modern trends

A bag that's chic is a bag that you can wear everywhere, day or night.. it has a sense of humour, a sort of tenderness

Sonia Rykiel