Purses are the new shoes, the must haven’t’ accessory that’s all the fashion-istas clamoring for the newest offering from preferred designers. It is also a market which has more in common with the male-dominated world of classic vehicles than you’d realize. Few of you’ll have missed the fuss a couple of months back when Sainsbury’s sold twenty thousand not a plastic bag’ Anya Hind-march totes for [pound]5 each. Within hours those self same unbleached cotton bags were selling for above [pound]150 on eBay. ‘Every girl has a handbag,’ claims Christie’s expert Monica Turcich,’and each girl wants one. Ladies now need the ‘it’ bag and the one nobody else is carrying. They have always been favored and they are the section of our 20th-century fashion sales for which we get the maximum telephone calls, but now they’re doing particularly well because everyone wants purses, whereas ten years ago there were not the ‘it’ bags like we have today, simply the classics.’