Rigid red checkered handbag

A structured red check handbag that keeps its shape

Six colours share the front of this bag and none of them gives way. Wide white bands run under thin black lines, a chocolate square butts up against a petrol blue one, and two red stripes cut straight across the middle. The grey panels along each side are printed with a small repeating diamond. Nothing about it is discreet, and that is rather the point. If you would sooner compare calmer shapes first, look through the rest of the aisle, from quiet plains to louder prints.

Two grab handles first, the strap only when you need it

Most days the pair of short handles does the job on its own. When your hands are full, the detachable red strap hooks onto two rings set low on the sides of the bag. Those are separate fittings from the ones the handles use, so the strap never crowds the grips. Take it off again and you are back to a hand-carry. Round the back there is a flat zipped pocket on the outside, for the card or the ticket you want without opening the main body.

27x20cm, read off the maker's own diagram

The bag comes in at 27x20cm with 12 cm of depth and 0.7 kg on the scales. The handles are short, 16 cm from the fitting to the top of the loop, which puts this in the crook of the arm more often than on the shoulder. Underneath, the flat red base carries four metal studs at its corners, so you can set it down on a café table without thinking twice.

What sits on the front panel

An engraved Gallantry plate is fixed to the pale panel, level with the handle brackets. A red faux-leather bow hangs just below it on a fine chain, held by a small lobster clasp, so it lifts off whenever you want the front left bare. The square riveted brackets that carry the handles pick up the same dark grey metal as the plate and the chain.

Styling a check this loud

Bags this graphic tend to be daytime bags, and the 27x20cm scale agrees: a lunch, a gallery, an afternoon in town. Keep the outfit plain and let the front do the work. If you do want to answer the red, do it once and low down, in a shoe rather than at the neck, so the eye still lands on the bag. To see what else the same label makes, try the rest of this label's bags.