A Pop of Red and a Hint of Nostalgia

It’s been ages since I participated in a What I Wore Wednesdays meme. Frankly, most of the times, my style is not worth mentioning anyway. It’s usually jeans and a tee, layered with a scarf or a sweater.

It’s very rarely that I change this routine up. However, a couple of weeks back I took my old red bag out of storage, and somehow, it’s made everything I wear look new and trendy and fresh once again. And made me want to participate in WIWW again.

Once I wrote out this post though, I realized that this meme seems to have died out altogether in the past few months, and so I am ending up now doing this post standalone (I can’t think of a better word for it). Here it is, the story of my bag, and how it has revived my interest in dressing up.

Story Behind the Bag

There’s a little story behind this bag. I bought it in 2010, and it was my very first online purchase ever (from Shopbop). When I see this bag, I still recall the thrill, fear, and excitement when I made my payment on the web. I was so scared about using my credit card, and very worried about the condition of the item. I got the bag on final sale (70% off) and so there was no return. So yeah, extremely scary.

Thankfully, everything went smoothly and the bag came home, and I loved the style and the design, although frankly it looked quite different from the images on the web.

Now, I am an online shopping pro, and I know to google the web, look for additional pictures, and basically do the research before I enter my credit card or paypal details. But yeah, at the time, when the bag came, I wasn’t prepared for just how big and red it was.

Anyway, I wore it a couple of times, and then saw that it being a light-colored leather, there was some color transfer from my denim onto the back of the bag, and so in a panic the bag went into retirement. Until I guiltily pulled it out of the cupboard last week.

And second time around, it’s been awesome. I have been wearing it with all my clothes, and because it’s now a five-year old bag, the color transfer issue no longer bothers me. Here are a few combos I tried.

Different Looks With the Bag

Not all these shots were taken last week, I have included the last two older shots just to showcase the versatility of this bag.

So, these are the different looks I could come up with this bag, and I am super-thrilled that this bag is getting some action once again. There’s nothing worse than stuff staying unused.

I still would like to clean up the bag though and remove the color that got transferred onto the bag. Have you faced this issue with light-colored bags? How did you take care of the staining? Do you have stuff gathering dust in your wardrobe? When do you know it is time to trash it? Frankly, I was thinking of selling this bag, but now it’s back on my favorites list again 🙂 .