Sweet Candy Vintage Cat Gallery Handbag

A cat print handbag with a framed gallery on the front

Look closely at the panel and it behaves like a wall in an old house. There is a black cat in an ornate oval, more cats in gilt and floral surrounds, a birdcage, a key, a clock, even a tiny armchair. Nothing is arranged in rows, which is what stops it looking like wrapping paper. The panel is printed on a dusty pink ground, and the bag around it is put together from vertical strips of camel, rust, cream and khaki, so the panel reads as the one busy element against four calm ones.

Paw prints and a zipped pocket on the reverse

The back has none of that detail. Paw marks in green, teal and grey are scattered across an ivory ground, evenly enough to work as a pattern rather than a picture. A zipped pocket runs horizontally across the middle, set in a tan surround with the pull left visible. The khaki band along the bottom carries two printed lines of English text and a pair of paw marks, and a cat's head with pointed ears rises above the band on the right.

Carrying it: two short handles or a clip-on strap

The shape widens as it goes up, so the base is narrower than the opening and the top corners flick out slightly. The two flat handles, one camel and one sand, are cut for the hand rather than the shoulder. When you want your hands free, the thin strap clips to rings stitched into either side. All of the hardware, clips included, is silver-toned.

Measurements and colours

Colours that make it easy to place

The colour blocks are all warm and muted, which is why the bag sits happily with a cream jumper, olive trousers or a tan boot. The printed panel is doing the talking, so anything loud alongside it fights for the same attention. Silver-toned jewellery picks up the clips without adding a second voice.

Some days you want a bag that says nothing at all. For those, there are the plainer handbags on this shelf, in shapes that keep to a single colour.

Because the strap only clips on, it takes seconds to swap it for a length of printed fabric webbing and change the look of the bag without changing the bag.