deep cut vintage bag brands you probably haven't heard of before
30 bags for the proud maximalist
At some point in my late twenties, I decided the fish was my sigil.
It just felt right: I am a triple water sign. I love to swim. I grew up eating whole steamed fish with ginger and scallion, picking through bones and fin to get the silky flakes of meat—so piscine anatomy was deeply familiar. Fish are symbolically loaded creatures.
Over time I collected fish mementos. A golden fish pendant with a ruby for an eye. A tattoo of said fish pendant, with a ribbon through the pendant loop. A pair of gold fish clip-on earrings.
This is my latest fish treasure, which is on its way from a secondhand store in Korea that kindly agreed to sell to me via PayPal direct. It’s a vintage orange suede bag with scales as the bag flap, a little goldfish charm down the middle.
When I was showing this to my sister, I realized that the “maximalist” in me isn’t so much drawn to items just because they “have a lot going on” (ex: bright orange, fish charm, etc) but rather because they are truly unique. I like to think I am a pretty observant person, and a substantial part of my style practice is simply looking at a lot of things, then identifying the patterns and the outliers. With vintage shopping, it turns into a sort of amateur archeology hunt: I want to find cool artifacts that have a story behind them!
I read and watch a lot of content about how fashion is really boring and homogenous now because everyone is dressing the same. Something something algorithm blah blah blah—yes, there’s truth to it and I’ve written about it before too. For me, the conversation tends to get tiring to participate in at a certain point because I start boxing myself into the ivory tower of fashion discourse. Sometimes, you just need to go into the field and look at things that disrupt your socialized concept of What A Sneaker Is (doesn’t have to be Sambas) or What A Bag is (The Row Margaux? I don’t know her).
Basically, I think it’s good to be presented with images and ideas the algorithm won’t show you. Today’s post focuses on vintage bags, because we’re heading into trench and coat season when most of your outfit IS the outerwear and a bag just POPS that much more. I spent hours digging for the deep cut brands that offer high quality (real leather, in most cases), good value (most bags under $100 mark) and intriguing designs.
Here are 30 vintage bags for the proud maximalist who isn’t scared to stand out!
I broke my list down into five visual themes:
Zebra print
Cow print
Rings & Studs
Snakeskin
Metallic
zebra print
I currently do not own a zebra print bag, but my Gem “saved” page is full of them as print inspiration. They’re just one notch higher on the maximalism meter than a classic stripe.
The Carla Mancini style in particular is quite similar to the Fendi Baguette, which has seen price jumps in the secondhand market due to SATC’s renewed popularity.
How I’d style it with items from my closet:
red leather pointed collar jacket (Agnes B)
light wash straight leg denim (Nelle Atelier)
white patent mary jane heels (Suzanne Rae)
OR
halter neck silk polka dot dress (Realisation Par)
red velvet platform sandals (vtg Prada)
cow print
Every few years, the fast fashion trend cycle mines the shit out of cow print. But I think we can wear cow print without worrying whether we look like microtrend final bosses. After all, animal prints have been present in fashion since the 1930s. I’ve always loved how playful cow print looks—the blobby spots, the imperfectness of how they bleed across skin—an reminder of how cosmically random our mammalian biology is.
These are my favorite to source secondhand! Look at the delicious colors and shapes! In my sourcing I start to notice a few star brands that come up repeatedly for certain patterns/materials like cowhide:
The scoop on the other 24 bags, on the other side of the paywall—