A letter from Maggie, about the bag she first saw at the dog park

A letter from a reader

Fifty years of handbags and I never once wrote to a shop about one. This is the exception

Six things the Tamar gets right that everyday bags get wrong, from a woman who does not review handbags.

Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Florida · 5 min read

Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Maggie, I am 68, I live on the Gulf Coast of Florida with two goldendoodles called Brooky and Toby, and I have carried handbags for fifty years without once writing to a shop about one. What I have done is wear out a lifetime of them, stiff ones that scuffed, floppy ones that ate my keys, cheap ones that looked cheap by the second month. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about a bag, saying so.

The one I am writing about is called the Tamar, from Mary & Mae's Leather, a small family store that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. I first saw it on the shoulder of a woman at the dog park, every morning of the week, with every linen shirt she owned, and when the store later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.

A caramel bag with a wide woven strap, teal with gold patterns worked into it, like something carried home from somewhere interesting. Beside it my sensible black handbag looked like a trash bag with handles. Read on.

Here is what fifty years of handbags taught me. They come in two piles. The smart pile, stiff precious things that scuff at the corners, hold nothing, and demand to be looked after like a third grandchild. And the practical pile, floppy dark sacks with open tops, where everything you own sinks to the bottom and hides.

Stiff and precious, or floppy and bottomless. Those were the handbag options, and I had done my years in both.

So I ordered the caramel one I had seen at the park. At the checkout it said Buy One, Get One Free, which I took for one of those things that turns out to have small print, so I added the Charlotte in black for church and the occasional dinner out and waited to be charged for both. I was not. Two bags came in one box.

The Tamar is the first bag I have owned that is neither, and having carried it daily since it arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.

The day it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. I did not.
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1It does not look like its price

It looks like something with a story behind it. The finish is supple and softly grained, the sort of vintage look people assume was picked up years ago and looked after, and it sits with a composed slouch rather than collapsing. Two women at book club have assumed it cost several times what it did. I have stopped correcting them.

On the hall table. It has a way of looking like it has always been there.

★★★★★

A woman at the farmers market asked if it was an heirloom. It had been mine for two weeks.

Barbara W., Naples, FL
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2The strap is the show

Most bag straps are an apology, a thin dark strip that digs in by the end of the block. This one is wide and woven, teal with a gold pattern running its whole length, so the weight spreads and the shoulder never complains. It adjusts with a little brass buckle, and it clips off at two brass hooks, which also means it is the one bag on any hook nobody mistakes for theirs.

The strap up close. The little brass hook is the detail that finished me.

★★★★★

The strap gets more compliments than the bag, and the bag gets plenty. Nothing digs in.

Sylvia M., Sarasota, FL

See the leather bag collection
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3It zips shut, right across the top

I do not know when handbags decided an open top was acceptable, but I never agreed. The Tamar closes with a proper zip across the whole opening, so nothing spills when it tips over in the car, and when the dogs pull on the leash my hand can rest on the strap instead of guarding the top. That is a small thing that turns out not to be small.

★★★★★

First bag in years I trust in a crowded parking lot. Zipped shut, hand on the strap, done.

Margaret H., Fort Myers, FL
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4The inside is on your side

Inside it is properly lined, in a light color so you can actually see what is in there, with pockets that give things homes. My glasses have a place. My keys have a place. My phone has a place. Nothing sinks to the bottom to hide under a bag of dog treats, and I have stopped doing the sidewalk excavation every time the phone rings.

Glasses case and keys going into their homes. Nothing hides in this bag.

★★★★★

Phone, glasses and sunscreen each have their own spot. Nothing rattles round the bottom any more.

Kathleen B., Tampa, FL
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5It holds a proper day out without becoming a sack

A paperback, a cardigan for the air conditioning, the glasses, the wallet, and a bag of peaches from the market on the way home. It takes all of it, and because the shape has some composure to it, it still looks like a handbag at the end rather than a trash bag with a strap. Empty or full, it holds its line.

★★★★★

Book, sweater, water bottle and the groceries, and it still looked composed walking out of the store.

Doreen T., Clearwater, FL
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6It goes with everything, and it earns its keep

Caramel, it turns out, goes with every top and cardigan I own, which is more than I could ever say for black. It does church, the market, the vet run and a birthday lunch without a change of bag, and the Charlotte in black, the one that came free, does the evenings and Sundays. The old bags lived in the closet taking turns. These two have not been put away since they arrived.

★★★★★

I bought it for best and now it does every day too. The caramel goes with everything I put on.

Jean A., St. Petersburg, FL

The Tamar, against the handbags you have been buying

You can find a handbag for forty-odd dollars anywhere. I know, because I own the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

Most department store handbags

Stiff and precious, or floppy and bottomless

 

A thin strap that digs in by the second block

 

An open top that spills and invites

 

One dark cave inside, everything hidden

 

Look exactly what they cost

The Tamar

Supple vintage finish that keeps its composure

 

Wide woven teal and gold strap, soft on the shoulder

 

A proper zip right across the top

 

Light lining and pockets, everything to hand

 

Looks a great deal dearer than it is

About the price

The Tamar is $79.95, down from $400.

I will pass on what the store told me, which is that Mary, the mother in Mary & Mae's, is 74 and retiring, that Mae cannot keep it all going on her own, and that they are clearing the collection, so once this run is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. The store has Buy One, Get One Free on the whole leather collection while the clearance lasts, which is how I ended up with the Charlotte as well. What I can tell you from my side is that a markdown like that is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and weeks of daily carrying in, I have not found it.

And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.

4.2 ★

Rated by 300+ customers

37

Pieces in the collection

Free

US shipping

On its hook by the door, packed for the next outing. The black one is upstairs, ready for Sunday.

If you have a market morning, a book club, a long drive to see the grandchildren or a walk with the dogs anywhere in your future, and your current bag is a trash bag with handles or a precious thing you are frightened of, this is the one I would put on your shoulder myself, while the caramel is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.

Maggie

Tamar | Vintage Bag

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

$400.00$79.95

+ a second bag free

✓ Supple vintage finish that looks far dearer than it is

 

✓ Wide woven teal and gold strap, soft on the shoulder

 

✓ A proper zip right across the top

 

✓ Light lining with pockets, everything to hand

 

✓ Caramel, plus black, green and cream

 

✓ Buy One, Get One Free on the whole collection

 

✓ Free Tracked UPS Shipping

See the leather bag collection

Clearance sale. Buy 1, Get 1 Free ends tonight!

About the writer. Maggie Whitfield is 68 and lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with her goldendoodles, Brooky and Toby. She is a customer, not a fashion writer, and she was not paid to write this letter.

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