Every now and then, I find a bag where I love the concept and hate the implementation. Take the custom printed bag as example, you can design all your bags. I find those bags kind of irritating to write about – it’s hard to not come off either more or less enthusiastic than I really am about the whole thing when I’m actually stuck somewhere in the middle. But apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, because that’s exactly how I feel about the Bag. So, if you’ll forgive me a bit of folly, I’m going to try and explain why.
I think that the idea of a bag covered in chains works great. The black nylon mesh looks too puffy and when combined with the chains, the effect is somewhat like a goth gym bag. And I don’t think most goths exercise. Do they? Anyway, not a good look. And most of the chains are so thin that from a distance, I would think that they would either look like strings woven into the bag or unwound paper clips clinging to it (that’s certainly what they look like in the photos). And forget about wearing this with a sweater – you’d be just asking for those links to snag and pull it apart. The whole thing works in theory, but not in practice.
It’s just teal enough to be eye-catching without being bright and obnoxious. It would go with a variety of neutrals and brights and either stand on its own or blend in a bit. I’ll even forgive the fake stamped croc.
Such bag printer can print all kinds of bags, custom printed plastic bags, custom paper bags, custom printed shopping bags, custom promotional bags and so on. I’m really not much for non-exotic exotics, but in tiny clutch form, their sins are less apparent. The bigger the bag, the more likely it is to look plastic-y and cheap, but when you shrink it down to miniature size, the effect is similarly lessened. Which bodes well for this particular bag – Merkin often makes two sizes of her signature clutch shapes, and this is the smaller size of this particular design.
The more I contemplate this color, the better it gets. It’s dark enough to wear with dark winter neutrals and not too dark to wear with the lighter colors of summer. I can see this with both charcoal grey and bright white, and few colors are really versatile enough to do double duty, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that they are. This, however, is the real deal.