Thursday, October 05, 2006

Your Chance to Grab Scarlett's Bag

What do women want? It might have puzzled men over the ages but women are in no doubt whatsoever. We want a new handbag, possibly Mulberry, maybe Chloé or Marc Jacobs. It should have been flagged up as a must-have by an esteemed fashion magazine or been carried by a cool celebrity. We would like it in a colour that we don’t have already, that goes with our winter coat. It’s that easy. About £800 should cover it.

Recent market research shows women have, on average, five handbags on their wish list at any one time. Earlier this year, Mintel revealed British women spend £350m a year on bags, an increase of 146% over the past five years.

Which is why, when the Scottish Community Foundation (SCF) was casting around for a way to pull young, professional women into their fundraising activities, their thoughts immediately grew two handles, several pockets and a chunky padlock. Handbag Heaven, an auction of celebrity and donated handbags to be held in Glasgow on Friday, is the result.

“When we saw how much sales of handbags had risen, we realised this was something that would appeal to a lot of women,” says organiser Imogen Assenti. She was not wrong. All 140 tickets for the event are sold out.

Love of handbags is not a new-born desire: It-bags have been around since 1956, when Grace Kelly was photographed for the cover of Life magazine hiding her pregnant belly with the Hermès bag that then adopted her name. The monogrammed fabrics of bags by Louis Vuitton and Gucci held a certain status throughout the 1970s but these were elite products, rarely seen outside big cities.

It wasn’t until Prada put a metal triangle on to a utilitarian black nylon rucksack that a handbag became the instantly recognisable fashion item that anybody with £300, no matter their age, shape or postcode, could carry with pride.Now that fashion houses have cottoned on to the huge profits to be made from bags, everybody from Alexander McQueen to Primark is thrusting them under our noses.

With the help of committee members such as Carol Wallace, the former managing editor of People magazine in America, the SCF has persuaded stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Twiggy, Naomi Campbell and Scarlett Johansson to donate bags for auction. There will also be a chance to snap up this season’s bags — Harvey Nichols has donated a Luella classic.

The SCF office, where male employees are heavily outnumbered by female accessory addicts, has become a temporary warehouse. “There are handbags everywhere,” says Assenti. “We thought we might get sick of them but it hasn’t happened yet.”

She names the pink chunky Celine bag donated by Johansson, and the green and pink spotty clutch bought in New York by Annie Lennox as her favourites. She also loves the stories they carry. JK Rowling has provided the evening bag she took to the premiere of the first Harry Potter film.

The Americans are old hands at handbag auctions and when Assenti heard that the Women’s Foundation in Arizona holds an annual Old Bags’ Lunch — where the ladies check in their quilted Chanel numbers and don’t get to check them out again — she was convinced she was on to a winner. “Traditional charity auctions tend to be men outbidding each other for signed football strips,” she says. “This will give a whole different group of people a chance to bid for something they really want.”

The SCF is particularly keen to bring in young female supporters, as one of their main activities is directing grants to women’s groups via the Women’s Fund for Scotland. Although Friday’s event is sold out, Assenti is stressing that it is possible to bid for the bags online. And while she has her fingers crossed that one or two might hit four figures, there will be bags starting at £10.

It sounds almost too good to be true: buy a handbag, help a worthwhile women’s charity. If only they could serve zero-calorie canapés, washed down with hangover-free cocktails, it would be a perfect girls’ night out.

www.handbagheaven.org.uk

Source: timesonline.co.uk

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