![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Material Culture: Carrying Stuff Around
Mar. 2nd, 2022 08:16 amFor a while now (at least months, possibly years), I have been seeing ads on FB for Bandolier. I find the idea of that brand absolutely awesome, but the advertising and price point not so much. If I were in my 30s and walking to bars and parties and going home with people or bringing people home with me, or whatever, you know, that kind of actual Social Life, maybe. But as it is, I am more in the middle-aged-woman-purse-needs-to-carry-more-shit part of my life.
But the wallet on a string has had longer appeal than those FB ads. A. is going through that delightful middle school age of trying to figure out what kind of things she wants to use to carry her stuff around. From backpacks, she has moved to crossbody bags, and settled on a rolling backpack for school. For a purse (which she sensibly does NOT bring to school), she’s tried a variety, including crossbody, sling bag, small backpack, and wristlet, and has settled on a wallet on a string, worn crossbody.
A bunch of this process happens on vacation, when she’s more likely to be out and about with her phone and NOT her backpack. On this most recent trip, we were shopping for a wristlet, which she had just learned the existence of. R. took her over to Disney Springs, where they found a Vera Bradly minimalist crossbody / wristlet. In my mind, Vera Bradley is cotton, quilted pouches with aggressively colorful and “feminine” patterns. What she got was none of those. It’s made with Vera Bradley’s “Lighten Up” fabric, which they have more recently subbranded part of as “ReActive”, and sourced from recycle plastic bottles. There are solid color options, and the patterns are very different from what I associate with Vera Bradley. And the strap is little more than a narrow ribbon, but performs _very_ differently from a narrow ribbon. It is completely smooth and soft and shows zero wear after a week of constant wear. It is easily adjustable and incredibly lightweight. It doesn’t snag or cut or feel scratchy. In short, it is exactly everything one would like to have simultaneously in a narrow crossbody strap, and which one never, ever gets all at once.
So I ordered one for myself online.
I’ve been trying to get the wallet on a string into the mom bag for years now, with little to no success. There are some interesting conundrums. As a “going out at night bag”, wallet on a string or mini-bag work well for me. I don’t carry a ton of stuff around with me, and I’m generally happy with a very minimalist wallet or integrated organization in a minibag or wallet on a string. However, during the day, I need to have my sunglasses with me. I don’t feel comfortable with the on my head / tucked into my shirt or bra / just toss it in options in general, because these are prescription sunglasses and I really like them. A. managed to fit her phone AND her sunglasses in this bag; once my folding green stuff and cards were in there, there was no way even uncased sunglasses were going to fit.
But then I went back to thinking about Bandolier. And it turns out that glasses cases on carabiners or other clips are a Thing. So I guess I’ll try that next.
In the meantime, I am contemplating the miracle of branding, and the fact that Vera Bradley managed to come up with something I actually wanted to buy, in the process of evolving in a direction that has basically none of the obvious characteristics I associate with Vera Bradley, _and still managing to feel very like a Vera Bradley choice_. Apparently, dressy-casual, and easy-to-wear were really the underlying characteristics, and the quilted cotton flowers were just one incarnation of that.
But the wallet on a string has had longer appeal than those FB ads. A. is going through that delightful middle school age of trying to figure out what kind of things she wants to use to carry her stuff around. From backpacks, she has moved to crossbody bags, and settled on a rolling backpack for school. For a purse (which she sensibly does NOT bring to school), she’s tried a variety, including crossbody, sling bag, small backpack, and wristlet, and has settled on a wallet on a string, worn crossbody.
A bunch of this process happens on vacation, when she’s more likely to be out and about with her phone and NOT her backpack. On this most recent trip, we were shopping for a wristlet, which she had just learned the existence of. R. took her over to Disney Springs, where they found a Vera Bradly minimalist crossbody / wristlet. In my mind, Vera Bradley is cotton, quilted pouches with aggressively colorful and “feminine” patterns. What she got was none of those. It’s made with Vera Bradley’s “Lighten Up” fabric, which they have more recently subbranded part of as “ReActive”, and sourced from recycle plastic bottles. There are solid color options, and the patterns are very different from what I associate with Vera Bradley. And the strap is little more than a narrow ribbon, but performs _very_ differently from a narrow ribbon. It is completely smooth and soft and shows zero wear after a week of constant wear. It is easily adjustable and incredibly lightweight. It doesn’t snag or cut or feel scratchy. In short, it is exactly everything one would like to have simultaneously in a narrow crossbody strap, and which one never, ever gets all at once.
So I ordered one for myself online.
I’ve been trying to get the wallet on a string into the mom bag for years now, with little to no success. There are some interesting conundrums. As a “going out at night bag”, wallet on a string or mini-bag work well for me. I don’t carry a ton of stuff around with me, and I’m generally happy with a very minimalist wallet or integrated organization in a minibag or wallet on a string. However, during the day, I need to have my sunglasses with me. I don’t feel comfortable with the on my head / tucked into my shirt or bra / just toss it in options in general, because these are prescription sunglasses and I really like them. A. managed to fit her phone AND her sunglasses in this bag; once my folding green stuff and cards were in there, there was no way even uncased sunglasses were going to fit.
But then I went back to thinking about Bandolier. And it turns out that glasses cases on carabiners or other clips are a Thing. So I guess I’ll try that next.
In the meantime, I am contemplating the miracle of branding, and the fact that Vera Bradley managed to come up with something I actually wanted to buy, in the process of evolving in a direction that has basically none of the obvious characteristics I associate with Vera Bradley, _and still managing to feel very like a Vera Bradley choice_. Apparently, dressy-casual, and easy-to-wear were really the underlying characteristics, and the quilted cotton flowers were just one incarnation of that.