At 62, I bought a handbag that shuts the way my mother's did
At 62, I bought a handbag that shuts the way my mother's did
Six things the Kima gets right that modern handbags get wrong, from a woman who is not a fashion writer.
Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and I have never once sat down to write about a handbag. My mother kept hers on the hall table, and it shut with a click. Two little metal balls that pressed together, and that was that. I was allowed to hold it if I was careful, which I understood at the time to be a considerable honour, and I can still hear the sound of it now, fifty odd years later, which is not something I can say about any bag I have owned since.
The bag I am writing about is called the Kima, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly looking after women our age for a few years now. Cognac brown, a kiss lock top with two metal balls, and one line of stitching straight down the front. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition that I could be completely honest in it, including about the size of it.
Three women asked me about it in one afternoon. Read on.
Here is what happened to handbags, and I do not think it happened all at once. They got bigger, and then they got practical, and then they got zips and clips and a great logo on the front, and somewhere in there they stopped being something you owned and became something you carried. Mine were all perfectly serviceable. I could not have told you one thing I actually liked about any of them.
A handbag used to be a small pleasure. I cannot see any good reason why it stopped being one.
The Kima is the first bag in about forty years that I have been pleased to pick up, and having carried it most days since it came, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came, still in its box. I clicked it open and shut about four times before I put anything in it.
IT CLICKS
This is the whole reason I bought it and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It is a proper kiss lock: a metal frame across the top and two little round clasps that you press together with your thumb and finger, and they meet with a soft click. There is no zip to catch, nothing to fiddle with, and no wondering whether you shut it. You hear that you shut it. It is a small thing that happens perhaps twenty times a day, and twenty times a day I like it.
The clasp. Thumb and finger, and it clicks.
The click is exactly right. My mother had one like it and I did not expect to feel anything about a handbag at my age.
Brenda L., CarltonIT IS REALLY TWO BAGS
It came with a long strap that clips on at both sides, and it took me a day or two to realise I had bought two different bags for the price of one. Strap on, it goes across the body and I have both hands free for the shopping. Strap off, it is a neat little bag with a short handle that I carry in my hand, and it looks like something else entirely. I use it both ways in the same week without ever feeling I have got the wrong bag with me.
The strap comes off altogether. Two bags, really.
Crossbody for the supermarket, handle only for going out in the evening. I did not expect that from one bag.
Rosemary P., KeyworthTHE STRAP GOES TO THE LENGTH YOU ACTUALLY WANT
The strap buckles, so you set it where it suits you rather than where somebody has decided it should sit. It goes long enough to wear properly across the body over a winter coat, which is the bit most bags get wrong, and it shortens up to sit on the shoulder if you would rather. I am not tall and I have spent years with bags that hung somewhere around my hip bone whatever I did with them.
Adjusted it right down and it sits where I want it. Over a coat as well, which is usually where I come unstuck.
Anne M., GedlingIT IS SMALL, AND THAT IS THE POINT
I will be straight with you, because I would want somebody to be straight with me. This is a small bag. It is nineteen centimetres across and about the same high, roughly a paperback book. It takes my phone, my purse, my keys and a lipstick, and then it is full. What I did not expect is that I would come to like that. I had spent years carrying a great heavy thing about with three pairs of reading glasses and a folding umbrella in it, and I never once needed most of it.
What goes in it. That is honestly about the lot, and it turns out to be enough.
Smaller than I expected from the photographs, so do read the measurements. Once I had got used to it I stopped missing the rest.
Judith W., CotgraveTHE FRAME HOLDS IT OPEN SO YOU CAN SEE IN
This is the bit I did not know I wanted. Because there is a metal frame across the top rather than a zip, when you unclip it the whole thing opens wide and stays open, and you can see what is in there. No holding it under your arm and feeling about. No queue behind you at the till while you go through it. You look in, you take out what you want, and you click it shut.
You can see straight into it, which sounds like nothing until you have spent years rummaging in a zip bag at the checkout.
Marjorie F., BulwellONE LINE OF STITCHING IS THE ONLY DECORATION
There is one clean seam straight down the middle of the front and that is the whole of it. No buckles that do nothing, no dangling charm, no metal plate with a name on it. The frame and the two clasps are the only hardware, and they are a dark gunmetal rather than a bright shiny gold, which I was glad about. It is soft faux leather with a proper metal frame, and it looks considered rather than expensive, which is a different thing and the one I was after.
On the hall table, which is where my mother kept hers.
Plain and well made looking, with no great logo on it. That is getting hard to find.
Wendy R., Burton JoyceThe Kima, against the handbag I had been carrying
For years I carried something big, black and entirely forgettable. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Big, heavy, and full of things I never used
A zip that catches, and a rummage at the till
A strap at whatever length somebody decided
Logos, clips and buckles that do nothing
Perfectly serviceable, and I liked nothing about it
Small on purpose, and light to carry
A kiss lock that clicks, and a frame that stays open
A strap you buckle to your own length, or take off
One line of stitching and two dark metal clasps
The first bag in forty years I am pleased to pick up
About the price
The Kima is £29.95 at the moment. It was £60.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that the brown goes before the black and once the autumn stock has gone it can be a wait for it to come back. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually the point at which I start asking what is wrong with a thing. In this case the answer is straightforward and I would rather say it than have you find out: it is faux leather, not hide, and it is small. Neither of those has bothered me, but you should know both before you order.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
Carried by the handle, strap off. It is the same bag, and it is not.
If you have not properly liked a handbag in years, I would start here. It is only a handbag, and a small one at that. But it turns out I had not stopped caring about such things at all, I had simply stopped being offered anything worth caring about. Go and have a look while the brown is still there.
Caroline
KIMA | Vintage Kiss Lock Crossbody Bag
- Vintage kiss lock frame with two ball clasps
- Short top handle, plus a detachable strap for crossbody or shoulder
- Strap buckles to your own length, up to 140 cm
- One clean line of stitching down the front
- Holds a phone, purse, keys and a lipstick
- 19 cm wide, 19 cm high, 5 cm deep · soft faux leather with a metal frame
- In cognac brown and black · free UK delivery and 30 day returns
The autumn sale is on now, half price. The brown goes first.