Buy a women's across the body bag online

I remember my first ever handbag: I was fourteen, and got it as a birthday present.  It was one of those hand tooled leather saddle bags, with a heavenly smell and a metal buckle.  Stupidly, I gave it away in the Eighties, when hand-tooled boho stuff was no longer "in".  Wish I'd hung onto it, because those bags last for ever and they actually get better looking with age!  (And they're enjoying a resurgence in popularity too.)

Anyway, one of the nice things about this bag was its long strap - long enough to allow you to wear it diagonally across your body, thus freeing up your hands for other tasks and allowing you to walk naturally, without hunching your shoulders or jamming your elbow against the bag in a vain attempt to keep it in place. 

Since then, I've always been a huge fan of across the body ("crossbody") bags. These days I have a lightweight Italian leather messenger bag, purchased a few years ago. It's lasted me well, and although it's looking a bit scuffed these days, is still going strong. At some point however, I'm going to want to replace it and have been looking for ideas, some of which I thought I'd share here.

What to look for

It might seem obvious but the first question to ask yourself is "will it hold my stuff?" I'm an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type of person, and I've found that a bag measuring 12 inches square (or thereabouts) is adequate for my needs. If you travel light, you can easily get away with something smaller.

You will also need to decide if you want something that has lots of separate compartments/pockets, or whether you prefer a "chuck everything into the same place" approach. My own preference is for the latter, because I tend to forget which compartments I've put things into and end up spending ages searching for what I want. But your own mileage may vary of course!

There's also the all-important question of shoulder strap length. Instead of strap length, you might come across the term "drop". Drop is the distance from the top of your shoulders that the top of the bag sits when you're wearing it. A good way to measure the drop of a bag you own would be to hang it on a hook and measure from where the hook is down to the centre top of the bag.

I'm tall (five feet 9 inches) and I find that a drop of 22 - 23 inches suits me best, and that's when the top of my bag is level with the lower portion of my hips. If you're not as tall as me, or if you don't mind having the bag sit further up your body, then you won't need such a big drop as me. For most women, anything from 19 - 23 inches should be fine.

If you want to check your ideal drop and you don't already own an across the body bag, then get a tape measure out and measure from the top of your shoulder down to where you want the top of your new bag to come.

Leather across the body bags

Leather is my favourite material for bags, especially when it's soft, high quality leather. The great thing about good leather - apart from the feel/touch - is the fact that it doesn't matter if it gets a bit scuffed, because that all just adds to the character. It's also smart and versatile enough to be worn pretty well anywhere, whether to the office or casually.

If you don't want to spend a lot of money but still want to look smart, there are some good synthetic across the body bags out there too. Or why not try nylon or canvas? Canvas has lost its army surplus store connotations and now comes in all sorts of funky colours and/or prints. Happy hunting!

© Empress Felicity February 2010