Round handbag Mélanie Paris Navy Mandala

A navy disc, cut straight through

The front is one clean panel of navy faux leather, pierced at the centre by rings of small triangles and dots that widen towards the edge. Nothing competes with it: no visible topstitching, no hardware across the face, just the cut-out doing the work. Shape is usually what decides this kind of purchase, so it is worth putting it next to other round and structured handbags in the range before you commit.

The tassel and the silver fittings

A fringed tassel hangs at the side from a silver ring, matched to the clips at either end of the strap and to the loop that gathers the two handles. The fittings are the only shine on the bag, which is what keeps the cut-out reading as the pattern rather than one detail among several.

What a 32 cm round handbag actually holds

A paperback and a folded umbrella lie flat inside without pushing the circle out of shape, and there is room left over: thirty-two centimetres across, eight deep. It opens from the top on a zip that runs the full width, and the printed lining reads bright against the navy. One zipped pocket inside keeps small things off the bottom, and a second zipped pocket sits horizontally across the back, reachable without opening the bag at all.

Two ways to carry it, one way to store it

Which of the two you use tends to follow the day. Short handles suit anything that has to look tidy, at the hand or over the wrist. The detachable adjustable strap clips onto the two side rings, sits at the hip or higher depending on how it is set, and comes off in seconds to lie flat inside the bag. If you wear a bag across the body by default, start from the long-strap side of the range instead. Between outings, stand it upright with a little loose paper inside: the disc holds its shape that way, and flat under a pile it does not.