How to Pick a Handbag for Anyone

Choosing the right gift for someone you care about can seem overwhelming when you look at all the options, but the perfect gift does exist.

 

The best gift ideas are items or services that are useful or convenient, making the recipient’s life easier, sentimental with thoughtful meaning, and reflective of the user’s personality or values. Specifically, when it comes to finding the best gifts for the women in your life, consider investing in a personalized luxury handbag as a functional and meaningful gift that matches their lifestyle.

 

Why Should I Gift a Handbag?

Gifts have meaning. Even a gift card or nice paperweight means something to the recipient. A gift card to their favorite restaurant says you want them to enjoy themselves while a paperweight in the right color and shape can be nostalgic or aspirational.

 

Giving a handbag as a gift for your mom or wife is similar to gifting kitchen tools or car gadgets. The first meaning is always functionality so you can cook better, fix your car, or carry things more efficiently. The second meaning makes its appearance in the quality of the gift. The best gifts use high quality ingredients or materials and come highly rated. Luxury handbags use better materials because they are built to last a long time and still offer the useful functionality that makes a handbag a meaningful gift. Moreover, a handbag is special; it is a portable and creative way to visually showcase their identity, their style, and even their accomplishments without saying a word. 

Why Do Women Carry Handbags?

The age-old question of why women need to carry handbags is essentially answered by the lack of pockets. Handbags do serve an intended purpose; women use them in lieu of the often-missing pockets of feminine attire or to carry all the items they would prefer to keep on them but don’t fit in their clothes. However, what began as a small, discreet, and favorable way to carry coins evolved into a vast variety of accessories made to enhance personal style and encourage self-expression.

 

Handbags for women have gotten larger to carry all the things one might need during the day. Similar to the unisex briefcase, a large handbag could be used to hold a laptop, padfolio, and any other work necessities as well as other items like a wallet, makeup, or even a change of shoes.

 

In addition to that convenience, designer handbags are an added accessory that can elevate an outfit for special occasions or events, signaling importance and lending a type of prestige to a wardrobe. Like anything fashion-related, handbags are also a choice and matter of personal taste. Regardless of the OOTD, women often carry their particular handbag out of preference.

Which Handbag Should I Choose?

With so many sizes, shapes, colors, and styles to choose from, picking a women’s handbag, especially when it is intended as a gift for her, can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. Yet there are several criteria that can help narrow down your options. You want to consider lifestyle as well as personal taste. Is this purse good for date night, going out with the girls, or best to help her run daily errands? After you figure out a purpose for the handbag, even if it is purely because it compliments her favorite outfit, then you can choose the shape and type of handbag to add to her collection.

 

The best designer bags are popular and highly sought after because they embrace the concepts of scarcity and personalization. Luxury handbags with limited quantities ensure she will rarely come across another woman with the same bag, making her bag one of a kind. Choosing a handbag in a seasonal color is an easy way to guarantee exclusivity, possibly in her favorite color and on trend with the latest fashion. Annually at Leatherology, we select colors that embody the season and sentiment for the time of year.

What Are the Classic Types of Handbags?

The best handbags for women are iconic and timeless in design while maintaining a kind of exclusivity or limited edition status that makes them unique and easily recognized by their silhouettes and functional features. Within the realm of women’s handbag styles, there is always room for the ebb and flow of fashionable features or design elements. If you or your gift recipient are always on the forefront of style trends, there some classic handbag styles with trendy new features that make excellent holiday gifts to keep up with this season and beyond. The four classic women’s handbag categories to keep in mind are shoulder bags, crossbody bags, mini bags, and clutch purses.

 

Shoulder Tote Bags

Shoulder bags are the classic handbags of recent times. They are available in an array of shapes and sizes but all commonly feature a mid-length strap or set of handles meant to fit on one shoulder with the body of the bag tucked under the arm. Women’s shoulder bags can vary from the small bean-shaped hobo bag to the unusual bucket bag shape or oversized tote bags.

 

Bucket bag silhouettes like our Elizabeth Large Bucket Bag open wide like a loose, slightly rounded tote bag. You can change the shape of our leather bucket bag by using the interior clips for a more structured look. In addition to being a fascinating and eye-catching accessory, the bucket bag shape offers a larger flat bottom to easily stack and carry items like small toiletries during a short getaway or its original and most common use—to carry champagne or wine on your way to a picnic in the park.

 

Oversized or large tote bags like our Aleena Soft Zippered Tote are the ultimate carryalls. They are big enough to carry a laptop or a change of clothes and still fit on your shoulder. Tote bags are great gifts for your mom on the go who needs to be prepared for day of activities with the kids or for the working woman who needs to be able to go from work to weekend easily.

 

The idea of going big is realized in a particular love for oversized tote bags this season. Specifically, extra large tote bags add a dynamic statement piece to your wardrobe. Not only do you gain extra carrying space but large totes like our Belmont Structured Tote can double as a work bag for the office. Specifically, the Kress XL Tote from our Kress Collection offers some of the structured lines of a briefcase with a less formal look.

 

Crossbody Bags

Crossbody bags for women are notable for their long straps, allowing the bag to hang on one hip or side while the purse strap crosses diagonally over the chest to rest on the opposite shoulder. Perfect for an active user, crossbody bags are often small to mid-size, the reduced capacity saving your shoulder from the stress of a larger, heavier bag. While running errands, going on vacation, attending concerts, or anything that requires a lot of movement, this handbag design keeps your purse close by yet hands-free. Straps are often adjustable like the included Thin Long Crossbody Strap of our petite Meadow Small Sling Bag. Regardless of the strap type, a longer one eliminates the annoying “shoulder slip” of a strap slowly sliding down your arm.

 

Mini Bags

Cute and compact, mini bags are eye-catching miniature versions of larger styles. A mini bag downsizes the contents to just the essentials. A collector of handbags might include at least one of these petite bags in their assortment. Our Kress Mini Top Handle Bag is a surprisingly spacious yet smaller style and a great way to add interest to an outfit.

 

Currently, a popular trend uses mini bags in an interesting way and might have you seeing double. It involves choosing to carry handbags and smaller pouches, wallets, or sometimes mini bags of a similar design or color at the same time. For example, our Willow Collection of handbags features a notable envelope design and our Haven Compact Wallet mimics that triangular front flap. A forward-thinking fashionista might carry our Haven wallet inside our Medium Willow Envelope Bag or use our Envelope Card Case to carry extra cards inside the slimmer Mini Willow Crossbody.

 

Clutch Purses

Clutch bags or clutch wallets are another typically small and timeless style. Best suited to nights out or quick errands, clutch purses skip the strap and are handheld. Larger clutch bags are meant to attract attention and complete an outfit while smaller wallets like our Small Willow Envelope can double as clutches. Clutch wallets are more a matter of convenience to keep cards, cash, and the all-important tube of lipstick or compact mirror close by. Some clutches also include rings to add straps and turn something like our Haven Compact Wallet into a shoulder bag or crossbody bag.

 

For extra glitz and glamour, this year make sure your clutch handbag includes a chain. Chains can be large or small, in various colors and decorative, or the integral strap for the clutch like our chain-linked Small Willow Wallet on a Chain.

 

Between those four types of handbags, you can find a gift for her that she can always use. However, in order to also choose a gift she will love, you need to identify what makes a handbag unique.

What Makes a Handbag Unique?

One of the most unique identifiers about a person is their name. Our wide range of personalization options take those special letters and places them on our leather handbags for a unique creation. We offer classic hand-stamped deboss and artistic hand-painted lettering in multiple colors and fonts, and the remarkable, quilted and raised stitching of our traditional Trapunto to elevate monogramming and match personal style. Our variety of personalization methods commemorate and celebrate the recipient’s initials in a thoughtful, enduring way. It is rare that two individuals would have the same initials, displayed the exact same way, so you can be confident that your personalized gift for her is exceptional and well received.

 

In the end, there are many women’s handbags that would be meaningful gifts, adding classic designs to any wardrobe. Whether you are searching for the right handbag for your wife, mom, other female loved ones, or even yourself, always keep in mind function—what the handbag will most likely be used for and where—and most importantly, the recipient’s personal style.