Enduring Love.

Byline: editor: Sally Singer

Farewell, fleeting encounters with It bags. This summer, says Mark Holgate, there are plenty worth getting to know on a long-term basis.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? Those happy, carefree days with an It bag on your arm, that totemic accessory that announced you were the owner of all that was desirable in the world. Life was good because you were one of the lucky ones to have It--quite literally, because chances are you had been speed-dialing stores to put your name down on a waiting list the minute that new, much-lusted-for purse was first glimpsed. Was there anyone immune to the charms of the latest tricked-up toy, which flirted with you by virtue of its seductive hues, gleaming statement hardware, and oh-so-swishy embellishments? And yet. . . . Women have lost their affection for all things It. What everyone wants now is a keeper, not a purse whose allure will vanish after just a few weeks, let alone months. We're returning to an era when all a bag has to do is be able to withstand the weight of your stuff, not the weight of your hopes, dreams, and aspirations about yourself and your style.

The writing has been on the wall for the It bag for quite some time. The last couple of years have seen women turn away from them and re-embrace the classics. Witness the slow, steady rise in desire for the Chanel 2.55 bag. It was designed by Coco herself in 1955 and reissued in 2005. There may have been seasonal adjustments--color, fabric, size--but essentially it really isn't any different from the model that first appeared more than five decades ago. And the fact that the 2.55 is so distinctively, utterly Chanel isn't a problem, because its status is immutable; a great bag is always a great bag, no matter how identifiable it might be. It just needs to feel that it has staying power. Chanel doesn't want to sully that reputation. Let other houses give their bags the hard sell by putting them on the runway; this house chose only to show precisely two evening minaudieres in its fall 2008 show in Paris in February, and that was it.

Quite recently, London skin doctor Frances Prenna Jones, M.D., hit the Chanel boutique on Bond Street before making her way to Selfridges department store to search for her next 2.55; she wanted one in white caviar leather to add to her considerable collection of Chanel purses--20 at last count. "Their iconicity," says Prenna Jones, "transcends their cult status." So the provenance of a bag shouldn't deter you from buying it, but it definitely shouldn't be its sole virtue. As Bruno Frisoni, who in his capacity as creative director of Roger Vivier has had to come up with bag designs that complement the storied shoe name, says, "A bag should be recognizable and beautiful, desirable and functional." (Take a look at Vivier's Metro for further reference.) And given that it's highly likely that you're going to be shopping for a summer bag soon, if you haven't started already, Frisoni's quartet of qualities to look for is as good a short list of requirements as you're ever likely to get.

The best of this season's purses certainly manage to tick all of those boxes (and they should, just imagine, be able to be carried for years ...