I am not loyal to any particular brand, so much as I am loyal to any brand that meets my particular requirements for what for me is The Perfect Handbag, which can and does change season to season.
Lately it's been Coach. I agree wholeheartedly with Kerry on the Madison Phoebe. In fact, I just duplicated my blush pink Madison Phoebe for the fall - in cognac. I really love ALL the Coach bags at the moment, even the ones that are too large for my 5'0 frame. But note, I did not like Coach bags at all for years and years. They've totally upped their game recently.
My other go-to bag at the moment is Kate Spade. I am consistently drawn to the clean lines of this brand, though often the bags are just too humungous in scale for me, so I pass them over.
I love a lot of the Michael Kors bags as well, and am drawn over and over to them online, but in person, the scale is too big for me, and also the hardware etc makes the bags too heavy to carry. What's more, when I get really nitpicky, the colors (of the non-black bags) are slightly off-- more on the warm than cool or neutral side.
Other (older) favorites in rotation are a Furla bag I spent a fortune on, that still looks great and was worth every penny. I keep checking out Furla brand for this reason. A Brahmin that has worn a bit but looks intentionally weathered. And a gorgeous red Italian bag I got at consignment, I don't recall the brand at the moment, I was draw to the rich color, classic shape, and appropriate size.
There's a theme here and it's size. That's number one requirement. I want the look but scaled to my 5'0 tall person. This tends to eliminate 9 out of 10 bags, even if I could afford the full price tag, or even if it's in the bargain bin.
Clutches are a different story. I have a whole collection of these. I have it in my head that these shouldn't be outrageously expensive, so I don't go high end for them. I'd rather have more clutches, than one or two nice clutches, because they are to me like scarves, which add punch to an outfit.
