At 63, I'd Given Up on Beautiful Bags. Then My Daughter Sent Me One She Called "Anti-Granny."
A note from a 63-year-old reader who got stopped by three different women in one afternoon - and the Mother's Day gift from her 35-year-old daughter that retired the beige tote forever.
For Mother's Day, my daughter Emma gave me a small kraft-paper gift bag, tied with twine, with a handwritten note tucked inside that read: "Mom. I love you. But the beige canvas tote has to go. This summer we're trying something new."
She is 35. She runs an interior design studio in Atlanta. She has, for the last ten years or so, tried to gently nudge me away from what she calls my "neutral phase" - that quiet stretch of years where I stopped really thinking about what I carried and just grabbed whatever fit my reading glasses, my wallet, and a paperback.
I opened it at brunch with my sister Eleanor, who was already smiling because she had clearly been in on it. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was the bag itself - a handwoven crochet tote in a natural ivory tone with rich brown leather-look straps. The kind of bag you would actually notice on someone - and that, I would learn, was exactly the point.
"Mom. It's Anti-Granny."
That was the text Emma sent me the night before brunch. I had been trying to extract a hint about what she had picked out. I was bracing myself for something practical. A weekender. A laptop sleeve. Something that would solve a problem.
No more beige canvas. No more "sensible."
You're 63, not 83. ✨
I had to ask Eleanor what "anti-granny" meant. She put down her mimosa and said: "It means it's pretty, Jess. It means it doesn't look like something you got free with a tote bag promotion in 1998."
And that, somehow, landed harder than I expected.
The Bag Is Called the Clare
Emma had ordered it from a small coastal label called Claire & June Malibu - the same boutique that made the Glyresan sandals my granddaughter Sophia sent me for my birthday last month. (Apparently it runs in the family.) Their summer bags do not look like summer bags. A handwoven open crochet construction with a beautiful geometric pattern. A natural ivory tone that looks expensive without trying. Rich brown leather-look shoulder straps. Generously sized at 17 inches wide, with an open-top design that makes everything easy to find.
"Mom, just trust me on this one. It's not trying too hard. It's not trying to look young. It's just elegant. Without trying. It'll work with everything you own - including that navy dress you keep saying you have nowhere to wear."
The Coach Brooklyn straw goes for $450. The Loewe Basket Bag is over $700. The Clare, Emma told me, she got on sale for $59.95. I asked her three times if she was sure about the price.
What Happened at the Gibbes
I carried it for the first time that following weekend. Eleanor and I had planned a morning at the Gibbes Museum of Art, then lunch on King Street. I had on a white linen shirt, jeans, and the Clare on my shoulder.
The first time it happened, we were standing in front of one of the paintings in the American gallery. A woman in her forties leaned in beside me and said: "Sorry to interrupt - that bag is gorgeous. Where did you get it?"
The second time was at the café. The barista, who I would guess was 25, asked me about it while she was making my coffee. The third time was on the walk back to the car. A woman my age, somewhere in her sixties, just touched my arm and asked.
Three times. One afternoon. Eleanor was already laughing by the third one. She kept saying "I'm going to need one. I'm going to need one of my own."
That night I called Emma. She did the laugh of someone who has been right about something for a very long time and is finally being proven so.
"Mom. I told you. Anti-granny. You're welcome."
What I Have Learned, Three Weeks Later
I have used the Clare almost every day since Mother's Day. Three things have stayed with me, and I have written them down because they are the kind of thing you notice and then forget.
1. It fits more than I thought. Seventeen inches wide is the kind of measurement you do not really understand until you start filling it - my wallet, sunglasses case, paperback, a water bottle, a sweater, and a small bottle of sunscreen all fit comfortably. I have stopped carrying two bags. I have stopped doing the thing where I put my book in a separate cloth bag because my main bag is "too small."
2. Younger women ask me about it. Not older women - although they do too. The compliments come from women in their thirties and forties, which is the part I keep telling Emma about, and she keeps laughing at me. After a decade of feeling slightly invisible at the grocery store, this has been - I don't know how else to say it - nice.
3. The geometric crochet is the detail. The open weave creates this beautiful pattern that catches the light, and the brown straps give the whole thing a polish that makes it look significantly more expensive than $59.95. I did not even see it when I first opened the box. Emma saw it immediately. I now understand why she works in design and I work with words.
About the Price
I want to talk about the price, because it was the part of Emma's Mother's Day gift that I assumed had to be a mistake. $59.95 for a handwoven crochet tote with leather-look straps and a generously sized open-top interior sounded like a marketing typo.
I sat down at my kitchen counter and wrote out what I had paid, or seen, for similar bags this season:
- Sézane straw bag, $185
- Coach Brooklyn Straw, $450
- Loewe Basket Bag, $700+
- Clare, $59.95 $150.00
I sent the boutique a quick email - the same way I did when Sophia gave me the sandals. I expected silence, or a copy-paste response. Instead, the next morning, I got a reply from Claire herself.
"We're quietly small. We'd rather the Clare go to women who'll actually carry it than sit in a warehouse waiting for next year."
What I'd Tell You If We Were Friends
If you and I were sitting on my back porch right now with a glass of iced tea and the dogs at our feet, this is what I would say.
Somewhere around 55, I quietly stopped trying with bags. Not because I stopped caring - I still care - but because every "summer bag" I saw was either a tote that looked like a freebie, or some trendy nylon thing clearly designed for a 22-year-old. So I gave up the middle ground and picked function. I have been carrying variations of the same beige canvas tote for almost ten years.
My daughter, who is 35 and apparently pays more attention to how I look than I do, refused to let me keep doing that. She did not buy me a practical bag. She bought me a beautiful bag that happens to also be practical. There is a difference. The difference matters when you are 63 and the world has spent a decade quietly suggesting you settle for one or the other.
I would tell you that I have been stopped seven times in three weeks. That Eleanor has already ordered hers. That my friend Diane, who is 66 and rarely orders anything online, called me last Tuesday to ask for the link. That I'm wearing the Glyresan sandals with the Clare right now, as I type this - the matched set, by accident. That the beach season sale is the lowest the price will be all year, and the stock is already moving faster than they expected.
I would tell you that the woman you are at 63 deserves a bag that looks like her - not a bag that looks like she stopped trying.
While they're still in stock.
- Jessica
- Handwoven open crochet with geometric pattern
- Natural ivory tone - pairs with everything
- Rich brown leather-look shoulder straps
- Generously sized at 17" wide - fits everything
- Free U.S. shipping & 30-day money-back guarantee
About the writer. Jessica Bennett is 63, a freelance editor and grandmother of three based in Charleston, South Carolina. Her daughter Emma is 35, runs an interior design studio in Atlanta, and is "the reason I now own three things I would never have picked out myself - all of which I get compliments on."
This is a personal account from a customer of Claire & June Malibu. Jessica was not paid to write it. She did receive the bag she wrote about (or rather, that Emma gave her).