A handbag of uniqueness, Part 1

Six months ago a pair of shoes (not yet featured on this blog) inspired me to go searching for a new handbag. I wanted a bag that would stand out against my mostly black clothes, that would go with everything I owned, medium size that would fit my stuff plus a hardcover book if required, and had an over the shoulder strap (anything else is too hard to manage while carrying Chic Little Girl around), and that had a light coloured lining (you can't find anything in a black lined bag). This, I know, is a tall list but I thought with enough diligent searching I might find what I was after.

I'd originally settled on a cream bag with black trim as the perfect colour (to match the shoes), but I searched and searched and I didn't find anything, not a thing, I searched in shops, I searched in department store, I searched in on-line stores, I searched on eBay; nothin', not a thing. There is a surprising lack of cream handbags on the market.

So finally, as I was Googling, I ran across a site that said it had designer bags, it was called Bambas, and it was based in Australia. 'What the hell,' I thought to myself, 'it's worth a shot.' Well all I can say is I was blown away by what I saw on the site.

This was the style of bag I thought would work for me, but I wanted red colours.

Their bags were beautiful ... dreamy ... stunning ... perfect ... expensive. I decided I didn't want any boring cream bag, I wanted a statement Bambas bag. Now all I had to do was to convince the other half that spending a great wad of cash like that was OK. I managed to get agreement by saving up the rest of the money from my birthday (the rest had gone on the shoes in question), telling people not to buy me a Christmas present but to hand over the cash instead (I said this was a while ago), and the last bit was eventually made up of my first payout from Google Ads (who-ho, and I did say that I would probably spend it on a flagrantly expensive handbag).

If I had oodles of money I would have bought this bag too.

The next step was to find a bag that would suit me and that I liked the colours and design of. There a so many beautiful bags on the site I had a tough time. In the end I didn't find one bag that I truly loved the colour of, and the colours and design I wanted wasn't on the style of bag I needed (with an over the shoulder strap). So I used the enquiry button and sent of a “please help” to Bruce from Bambas.

This was the design I settled on.

Bruce was very helpful and contacted me directly about what I wanted. We had a nice chat about the styles and colours and I asked about the combination I was after. He agreed to find out from the manufacturer in the Czech Republic. The next day he got back to me and took the details for my new bag. It was going to be a wait because of the Christmas rush, at least two months, but I could handle putting off my purchase for that long. If I’d wanted one of the bags on their site, I could have had it much earlier, but I wanted “my bag”.

And this was the colour.

So I waited, and waited, and then I waited a bit more. After three months, I contacted Bruce at Bambas again, who got me an update as to the status of my bag. There was a delay I found out, so I waited a bit more, until finally I got a call. The bag, it had arrived, but…

It was the wrong way round. The colours and design had been swapped around, oh no! Bruce was properly apologetic and took the details again; I emailed them this time so there was no confusion. The request was sent off again and a few weeks later, I had my bag, my lovely bag…

To be continued...

See more information at Bambas Handbags Australasia. Photos on this page care of the Bambas Handbags Australasia website.

Note: This is an unpaid review and I bought the product with my own money.

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