David Jones pink fabric shoulder bag

The wide woven strap, adjustable and clip-off

Most of what makes this bag wearable sits in the strap. It is a broad woven band, much paler than the body: pale pink and ivory worked into a line of interlocking diamonds, each one holding a small chevron. A rectangular sliding buckle in silver-tone metal shortens or lengthens it, and two clips of the same finish take it off completely, which turns the bag into something you can carry in one hand. That clip-on principle runs through other woven shoulder bags in the range, where strap length matters as much as what fits inside.

A coral knit shoulder bag with an ivory check and a fringed top

The body is knitted rather than cut from flat cloth, and it shows: the surface has a slight ridge to it, closer to crochet than to canvas. Coral rows run across the front, broken by ivory and crossed by two wider ivory uprights, so the front reads as an uneven check rather than a printed pattern. Along the top edge, a fringe of coral threads falls over the first third of the bag, with a handful of ivory tassels dropped in among them. Above the fringe, a cream band closes the top of the body.

Where the ivory sits in the weave

Look closely and the ivory is doing two different jobs. In the horizontal rows it appears as short dashes, one row solid coral and the next dotted through, which is what gives the front its soft texture from a distance. In the uprights it is continuous and wider, and that is what carries the check. The result is a coral that looks warmer in daylight than it does in a straight-on photograph.

Styling a coral that does not sit quietly

This is a warm coral leaning towards salmon, and it reads from across a room. Against navy or charcoal it becomes the one piece of colour in the outfit, which is usually the easiest way to wear it. With denim and a plain white tee it does the same job with less effort. Over a printed dress it works the other way round, as long as the pale strap is not competing with the print for attention. For the same woven feel in a firmer material, there are the bags built from plaited fibre, generally in larger shapes.

Keeping the fringe in shape

Fringing creases if it is squashed, and a crease in loose threads is slow to come out. Hanging the bag by its strap, fringe pointing down, is usually enough for the threads to settle on their own overnight. If a thread works loose from a row, push it back in with a fingertip rather than cutting it, since the neighbouring row will hold it. A soft brush drawn downwards tidies the whole edge in a few seconds.

Everything the single photo confirms