A fur to remember

Much has already been said about the slavish relationship a woman has with her purse, so I won’t go there. But if you insist on metaphors, then well, a man’s purse, more than his pockets, is his car – he dumps everything in it if he doesn’t live in it already. This car must be more than utilitarian – it has to be stylish, perform well under stressful conditions, and not the least, be enviable in the eyes of many. However, while most men function perfectly well with a singular vehicle, and in fact grow quite attached to a particular one over the years, it seems that bags, for women, are more of a freakish, fetish commodity.

Shall I remind you that women and their handbags have long co-evolved from our primordial gathering days? While men skulked around hunting for that elusive woolly with a spear and a yoyo, females foraged for quality fruit, fiber-rich grain, and the occasional small furry animal (a ritual now called shopping), and stuffed these finds into woven baskets or skin bags. It is thus a biological imperative and evolutionary right that a woman can never really have too many bags – and shoes too, since we’re at it.

We would feel naked otherwise. There are countless events to attend and occasions that call for the utmost propriety in size, flash and funkiness. Sometimes, a woman may choose to make her bag the centrepiece of her outfit, building the color scheme of her clothes and makeup around the accents and shades of one fabulous bag, which throughout the night should never lose handle-to-hand contact, unless said owner was improperly inebriated or ghastly enough to have the boyfriend stash it under his pits.

But with bags like these, who needs boyfriends?

These furry creatures are more than just arm candy, they’re an emotional support system. You know that experiment where they placed newborn baby monkeys in a cage with a wire monkey-like frame that dispensed milk from a bottle, and a fuzzy terry one that didn’t? The babies attached themselves to the hairy mommas, starvation and all, only scientifically proving what women have been quite obvious about for years – we’ll do anything, sacrifice ourselves if we have to, for a good um, fur. It’s all about touch and the tactile senses. When you hold something close to you, you want it to be pliable and soft, thick and fluffy, rich and dense – you want it to be luxe.

This limited collection of luxurious fur bags, named "Betise" and designed by a certain lady known for her inimitable sense of style and line of creatively stunning beaded bags, has arrived just in time for the holidays to love you right back. Made from real, un-endangered animal fur, they will cuddle up to you and demand attention and affection, almost like a real pet. Rabbit fur, an old favorite, fox, the new favorite, and introducing cat (well, now that’s out of the bag) make for one hairy collection, very From Russia with Love, but without the hard, unnatural edges that signify man’s technical, Heideggerian intervention with the environment (women still dance around their handbags in nightclubs in thanksgiving to the harvest goddess). These bags are all soft curves and floppy lucky feet, an "anti-clutch", as the designer calls it.

Animal defensives may balk at something so domestic as a cat being turned into an accessory (...to fashion murder), but I’m sure they were skinned in the one proper cat-skinning way, in a cat-eating culture no less (Hong Kong), so nothing’s to waste. Roadkill, its all the rage! A feline aficionado myself, I thought it would be intolerable Cruella – but, like the many strays I’ve collected in my childhood, the idea found a home (not to mention a new owner) in my rational bleeding heart. Being apartment-bound, irresponsible, bronchitic and allergic to fleas, I’ve been banned from keeping pets by my animal-hating impounders, er, parents. My Betise cat bag reminded me of my first cat, Antonia, and it brought back all accompanying conditioned responses of happiness and warmth, without the asthma attack. It raises its hackles, ripples its fur, sighs, purrs, takes catnaps, and doesn’t need to be fed – kind of like a more useful, cuddlier Aibo. Before I start sounding like Norman Bates on Vogue, I hope my little cat-hartic example makes a tiny but wider point about how one can turn something like initial aversion (discrimination, hypocrisy, prejudice, chip on shoulder, what have you) into something that actually derives pleasure and joy – all you need to do is open your heart, and the rest will follow.

And just like you and me, just like every fleabag we’ve known and loved (animals, too), even those pets we named the same after the previous one hied off to animal nirvana, and very much unlike cars – no two furbags are alike. And that, my friends, is the cat’s meow.

Betise fur bags are available only at Firma, Greenbelt 3.