Oh my God, you guys. I’ve found a Juicy Couture handbag that I like without caveat or qualification. Someone bring the smelling salts, I feel faint.
Sometimes, you have to judge a bag based on the context of the brand that makes it. A bag that might be a strong effort from one brand might look like a failure from a brand that usually make gorgeous stuff and, you know, not everyone can be one of the cool kids, in high school or in handbags.
Which is why I have nice things to say about the Juicy Couture Rule Breaker Tote – it’s not a great bag, but it’s a solid effort from the usually heavy-handed designers at Juicy Couture.
I have gone through phases of loving and disliking then loving Juicy Couture. But Juicy Couture realized they needed to reach out to the masses and they have. Long gone are the days of track suits only and here are the days of cute dresses, leather bags, and addictive charms. Amanda recently reviewed the Juicy Couture Queens Garden Tote which she liked but thought there was a bit too much going on.
Juicy Couture has the same problem with their handbags that I had with my fingernails as a kid: they just can’t leave well-enough alone. I’d paint my fingernails and then immediately notice some infinitesimal flaw and pick at the or try to fix it until it was several orders of magnitude worse than it ever was to begin with. It took me years to learn my lesson and keep my fingers to myself, and hopefully Juicy will figure all of this out one day as well.
Which is not to say that I don’t like the Juicy Couture Queens Garden Tote – I do, or at least I do relative to a lot of other bags that they make. It’s got a shape to it that reminds me a lot of the ever-popular Yves Saint Laurent Muse bags, and it looks like it would be a functional, but it also doesn’t look particularly well-edited. It’s a brightly colored, quilted, riveted bag that has four exterior flap pockets, useless hardware rings, and zippers with tassel pulls. In the words of Tim Gunn – that’s a lot of look. The bag manages to pull off all of those things decently well, but I think it would have looked better, or at least more high-end, if one or two of those things had been modified or discarded. Buy through ShopBop for $448.
Randomly, a few days ago, I decided to get a backpack. I don’t know why, but it was an undeniable, unavoidable urge. And though I like the North Faces and L.L. Beans of this world, I wanted a trendy backpack, one that would look cool when I wore it (who knows what place I had in mind). And then at Nordstrom’s I spotted it, the one, the backpack I wanted: the Juicy Couture Back to School Quilted Backpack.
It was soft, it was quilted, and it came in a sophisticated black color. Plus it had cute frills on the front! This was great, since it fulfilled my love of somewhat rocker and/or masculine looks (the black) with a touch or femininity (the frills). And the inside! It has all sorts of little pockets- I’m a sucker for organization. Then I tried it on, and reality set in. Sure, it was adorable and fit well, but with it on, I looked about twelve. And those patches? They had to go. Plus they had a touch of pink, and if there is any personal rule I stick to, it’s that I don’t wear pink. So I set down the frilly confection, sad but proud because I knew that if I had succumbed, I never would have worn it. If it is your style, buy it through Nordstrom for $228.
Doth my eyes deceive me? A Juicy Couture clutch that I would be more than thrilled to carry, no way! For whatever reason I tend to almost always have an adverse reaction to Juicy Couture handbags. However, if bags like this keep showing themselves, I might have to change my tune. The Juicy Couture Mayer Leather Clutch is rather appealing! I’ve always been a fan of white/cream leather and gold hardware and this is no exception. In fact, I absolutely adore the chunky hardware! The gold-tone cutout handle is one that I would have no problem holding onto. I even like the tassle detail! What has come over me? Icing on the cake… the price! Buy through Net-a-Porter for $230.
No…just…no. I refuse. I do not believe that a large company would have made this bag with the intention of marketing it to grown women or people that can afford a handbag that costs more than $100. It just…it makes no sense. It makes my face hurt. It makes my hair hurt. And it makes me wonder who, other than overindulged 12-year-olds, they thought they were going to sell the Juicy Couture Quilted Crossbody Bag to.
The shape isn’t great, but in the black version, it isn’t quite as magnificently terrible. The same with the ruffle – it’s still oddly Lolita-esque, but in a dark color, you don’t notice it as much. When the bag is baby pink, though, as you see it here…it charts areas of awfulness heretofore undiscovered by any bag we’ve previously covered. It looks like a bag made for toddlers playing house, but its price is in the 3 digits and it’s apparently meant to be carried unironically and by adults. For once, I’m actually hopeful that it’s only spoiled kids who are carrying this – they’re the only ones that ever should. Buy through Nordstrom for $128.
It warms the cockles of my cold little Grinch heart to be able to say nice things about a bag made by a brand I usually rag on. Everyone likes to see the underdog win the race every now and then, even if they’re not the horse you put your money on. Which is exactly what the Juicy Couture Equestrian Bag is – a good bag from a line that’s usually terrible, and proof that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The main attraction here is the matte, textured leather. I’m guessing that it’s the reason that they call the bag equestrian, although it reminds me more of motorcycles than anything (and black leather? They should have chosen whiskey brown for a horse theme). And I’m ok with that – I don’t necessarily need the bag to match the name for it to be a good bag. The texture of the leather is subtle but important for the overall look, and the other visual elements of the bag’s design are fairly inconsequential by comparison. I do like the addition of the small rivets on the handle attachment, although they also make me think more of motorcycles than of horses. They may have gotten the name wrong, but the bag’s right, and that’s what counts. Buy through Saks for $298.
The folks over at Juicy were thinking on the save wavelength as some of us when they created this Juicy Couture Yearbook Tote. Case in point: yesterday I saw a woman on the subway with a plain canvas tote covered in colored sayings. “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers,” and “Anything is possible” are just a few of many. When I asked the woman if it was her creation, she said that she had gotten together with a bunch of her friends and they had all created tote bags.
I think it’s a great concept. How often do we need a canvas bag to carry groceries, pens, magazines, and end up carrying one of those Whole Foods reusable grocery bags? Yeah. Sometimes you just don’t want to use those for everything, right? And what better way to express yourself than by making your own tote? This tote even comes with markers so you can get started right away. Buy through Nordstrom for $88.
More so than basically any other brand I can think of, Juicy Couture seems to always manage to make bags that I SHOULD like, but I don’t (I’m speaking only of their leather bags – most of their cloth ones have earned my scorn rightfully). I was faced this conundrum again when I saw the Juicy Couture Padlock Grace Tote. I like the color, I like the chain and tassel details, and I generally don’t have much of a problem with satchels.
So I think that my general dislike for the bag, and for other bags from the line, is that it just seems like it’s trying too hard. There’s too much unnecessary seaming, too many coy little rivets, and too little attention paid to the overall shape and flow of the design. Instead of spending so much time trying to decide where they could put seams that don’t even serve a functional purpose, they could have better spent it making the bag a more interesting or unexpected shape. But they didn’t, so this is what we have. Buy through Shop Bop for $428.
Sometimes, you have to judge a bag based on the context of the brand that makes it. A bag that might be a strong effort from one brand might look like a failure from a brand that usually make gorgeous stuff and, you know, not everyone can be one of the cool kids, in high school or in handbags.
