source: stock.xchng © wgroesel - Listen to your heart!

I find this hard to believe but according to research, the design of one’s handbag actually influences overall body shape. We should all, it seems, be paying just as much attention to our choice of handbag as we do our choice of outfit.

Apparently the length of your bag assists you in accentuating the part of your body you most want to draw attention to. Where your handbag rests is generally where most observers’ eyes will rest.

Short handbags make your chest look bigger (definitely getting myself one of those then) and longer length bags make your bust look smaller.

We are told not necessarily to go for what’s in fashion right now – whether that’s vintage handbags or Osprey handbags - but to choose a style that suits us. I find this rather hard to take considering I see the bags in the magazines and immediately I think I WANT IT, rather than THAT WILL SUIT ME!

Further instructions dictate that we should look for a bag that is the opposite of our figure. So I need a tall bag with big boobs! All tall and thin people are advised to opt for a rounded look and those of us with more curvy figures should lug around boxy shapes. Petite women are told to avoid large bags and vice versa.

Frankly, I say stuff the experts. If you love it, splurge. It’s a disease you know, you can’t help it. Ask your doctor, it may even be a syndrome. I have it! It only comes on when I’m in town and have no money. Those are the symptoms.

Rated: from 3205 votes

Satchel bag © pellevera

The Alexa Chungs of this world are a rarity. Poised, confident, clever and not afraid to be left-of-centre. How is it possible to be so self-assured at 24? I can only put it down to her country upbringing and lots of fresh air. No wonder Elle Magazine put her on the cover of the October edition. “Refreshingly down-to-earth” might be as clichéd as “a breath of fresh air” but that is what Alexa is. She puts her fashion success down to her normality. She doesn’t so much style herself as just get dressed, and her very lack of image consciousness has become her signature look. More importantly, she shows us how to work a satchel bag. Make it a leather bag, preferably a little beaten, preferably Mulberry.

“What is attractive or alluring is not necessarily how much flesh you bare, but how good your brain is, or how much charm you have.” The fact is, Alexa’s not afraid to show some skin – her legs are great and she knows it. But she is adept at proportion and balance: teeny short shorts downplayed with androgynous lace-ups, a leather shoulder handbag, a cropped tuxedo jacket, minimal make-up and definitely no cleavage. [“I want to be on Radio 4 when I'm older talking about books, and I think if I get my tits out now I won't be able to do that later."] Here’s a girl who mitigates the attention she gets through controlled dressing – she flouts what’s expected of her as a media darling, and that gives her serious stealth appeal.

Rated: from 2024 votes

Vintage Handbag: Flickr L. Marie

When I think vintage, I think musty, second hand and I wonder whether anyone died in it! But vintage is the new new… make sense?

I’m a collector of all things beautiful and handbags are most definitely my weakness, along with shoes. I would never buy an old pair of shoes, but handbags are quite a different matter.

Step into the world of vintage handbags with me for a moment. It’s delicious, like something from Narnia, I am going to reveal what treasures there could be lurking at the back of your mum’s/nan’s wardrobe. Excited yet? Good.

Do you remember the draw string bags from the 80s? They are selling for about £34 now, and they’re perfect for fitting in all your day to day essentials as well doubling up as a nifty evening handbag. Or how about travelling back to the 1950s when everything was square. I found a fantastic box-shaped handbag for £85 with metal spring loops on either side.

You have to be a little careful though: just because it’s vintage doesn’t mean it’s a great purchase. There are plenty of fashion disasters out there waiting to be collected. My suggestion would be to steer clear of vintage handbags from the 1960s - it doesn’t seem handbags had a good time of it back then. They were into plastic jelly bags of fluorescent colouring and frankly unless you are well and truly into being an eco warrior, I can see little else positive to say about the handbags from this era.

There may not be any need to actually buy a vintage handbag. If the women in your family are anything like mine, they will probably have half of these designs tucked away in a dusty old trunk in the attic.

Rated: from 2075 votes

My luck is in - the word on the street is that jewellery is big and back. It has gone super sized, which means that as of this moment, I am in fashion!

flickr © theogeo

Small, petite, delicate jewellery has never suited me and for years all my jewellery has been described as chunky. If I wear a ring, it’s huge, if it’s a bracelet it’s a clod hopping bangle. Earrings are several inches long and necklaces make me stoop a little bit. I tend to shy away from wearing them all at once though.

I find myself going through quarterly changes when it comes to jewellery. Every three months I go on the rampage for earrings. The next quarter I’m obsessed by bracelets, and then I widen the search to find accompanying beaded handbags and vintage handbags to match my jewellery acquisitions. The result is an overflowing jewellery box, meaning that when I put my hand in to retrieve my recent set of dangly butterfly earrings, they are attached to every other pair I have ever bought. It takes me hours to unpick them all and the chances of me ever finding a matching pair are pretty slim.

I’ve tried to organise my collection by investing in an earring tree. It’s shaped like a woman wearing jeans and a black top and her head is replaced with metal spikes the have loops for you to hang your earrings from. It’s a fantastic invention that makes the storage of your chandeliers much easier to cope with. Now I just need a gigantic version of the same on which to hang my huge wooden bangles and the necklaces I have accumulated over the years that are the length of bicycle chains.

So to be in fashion from now until Christmas, invest in some statement necklaces, wear in excess of three chunky bangles on each wrist and earrings so big they could perch a parrot on. Not forgetting of course, that as the size of your jewellery goes up, your beaded handbags – in fact all handbags – must be as small as you get them. Perhaps you could get a vintage handbag from a borrower and a necklace from a giant and then you would be set.

Rated: from 3566 votes