Donna Alessia burgundy puffer handbag

Carrying the burgundy puffer bag by hand or on the strap

Two flat webbing handles are stitched along the top edge, short enough to sit in the hand or hook over a forearm without the base swinging. The wide strap that comes with the bag clips onto the metal rings set at the top of each side, and its sliding buckle adjusts the length. Worn long, it clears a winter coat; shortened, it drops the bag closer to the hip.

The strap clips off and the bag stays a tote

Both ends fasten with silver snap hooks, so the strap comes away in a second and leaves nothing dangling from the sides. That makes the bag two things by turns: a hand-carried tote at a desk, a hands-free one on the way home. Bags that are built the other way round, around the strap rather than the handles, are gathered on the rail where the strap is not optional.

Sizing up 36 x 25 x 14 cm against a working day

At 36 x 25 x 14 cm, the bag takes a thirteen-inch laptop sleeve across its width, lets a folding umbrella stand upright, and owes its full profile to the fourteen centimetres of depth. The capacity suits a full day rather than an evening out. In the photograph, the bag is shown with nothing in it and still holds its full height, so the padding does the work a stiff frame would do elsewhere.

The openwork plate and the Try different lettering

Low on the front, dead centre, a small rectangular plate in silver-toned metal is stitched flat against the fabric. Its interlaced letters are cut right through, so the burgundy shows in the gaps and the plate reads differently depending on how the light falls. Further right, at mid-height, the words Try different are printed in soft grey: the letters are there for anyone who looks for them and easy to miss for anyone who does not.

Burgundy chevrons and the quilted surface

The seams run in wide chevrons meeting at the centre, and the padding swells between them into rounded ridges. The colour is a deep burgundy that shifts as it curves, darker in the seam lines, lighter across the raised sections. Handles and strap are cut from the same burgundy in flat webbing, which leaves the relief as the only pattern on the bag. To see what else the shelf holds at this capacity, browse the handbags sized for a full day out.