On my first day in Manhattan, dazzled by the splendour of the city, I visited MOMA and then whizzed over to Barney’s for some serious perusing and cultural enrichment. I love Barney’s. Even if you’re on rations, you can’t beat the people-watching in the shoe department, and a cup of tea in the cafe. There’s no harm in looking, and after a few hours of exactly that, you come away feeling almost as good as you would if you’d actually bought all the fabulous things you saw.

At Barney’s, you’re starting at the top. You can see beautiful cutting edge fashions by your favourite designers, and choose to

1. buy a little something

2. go home and make yourself an item inspired by what you saw. Note that I’m in no way condoning ripping off designers. I’m talking inspiration only.

3. wait for the trickle down effect some time later when you’ll see a much cheaper version of the same styles reaching the bargain stores.

It’s your choice.

Thank you Barneys (and other stores like it, in other cities) just for keeping the doors open so we can drift in, waft around, admire the beauty and occasionally buy something.

Here’s what I didn’t buy at Barney’s. It’s the work of Maria La Rosa. Hers are different to most designer bags. I first discovered them a couple of years ago when I thought I finally deserved a grown up hand bag and got confused by all the leather bags dripping buckles and pockets that were fashionable at the time. I looked at them all and just couldn’t relate. When I spotted a discreetly beautiful bag made of fabric amongst the faux lizard LV’s, the Guccis and the Pradas, I bought it and have treasured it ever since.

So there in a display case in Barney’s New York was a sensibility and style I recognized.

Maria La Rosa’s bags are made of fabric, woven by HAND on antique looms. They’re simply gorgeous. There were several, so India and I spent quite some time deciding which one we liked best (it was very hard to choose but much fun trying), and whether it should be my first New York purchase. Regretfully, it was not. I thought I’d find other things on which to spend my holiday dollars, which I did not. Maybe some lucky New Yorker has already taken it home.

Below are a few more of her bags. The range can be seen on her website here.

As I was passing through “security” at LAX on my way home, a young woman behind me was concerned about placing her handbag, which was falling apart, through the X ray machine. On seeing the very obvious JIMMY CHOO label I made a note to myself never to buy one and expressed shock that it was such a wreck given that Jimmy Choo is an expensive label. She laughed. “Oh, it’s not real. It’s a  knock off”. Get what you pay for, I thought.

But seriously, think how damaging it is for designers’ reputations when their work is copied with inferior materials, shoddy workmanship and judging by this one, will fall apart in a short time. Just sayin’.

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