A letter to Hattie & Rose
I’m 58. Nobody had ever asked me about anything I own.
I had a system for handbags, and the system was rubbish.
Every couple of years I’d buy another one off the same rack at Kmart. Faux leather, black or brown, whatever was on special. Fine for a winter. Then the corners would start to peel, the strap would crack, and it would slump over on the passenger seat and tip my things into the footwell. So I’d buy the next one.
Eleven years. Seven or eight bags. I never once asked why.
What changed it wasn’t a bag. It was a woman ahead of me at the Woolies checkout. She wasn’t showing it off. She’d set her bag down on the counter while she paid, and it stayed exactly where she put it. Deep cognac leather, two pockets on the front, the kind of bag that looks better for every year it’s carried.
I stood there holding mine and thought, oh.
I asked where she got it. She said, “Two sisters who are retiring.”
I’ll be honest with you
Because I think you’ll have the same thoughts I did.
“It’s a brown bag. They’re all the same.”
That’s what I assumed, and it’s what I’d been buying for eleven years. It isn’t the same. Theirs are stitched, not glued. The straps are sewn right through instead of glued on, and you can trace the stitching with your thumb. I went and checked my old ones afterwards. Glued, every seam.
And this one sits where you put it. On the passenger seat it stays upright instead of folding over at the first roundabout. I didn’t know that was a thing you could buy until I had one in the car.
“80% off. What’s the catch?”
I went looking for one, because I’ve been caught before. What I found was their story, right there on their website.
Hattie and Rose are sisters. They learned leather in their father’s saddle workshop and have worked at the same bench since 2004. After twenty-two years they’re winding down, and everything left in the workroom is 80% off.
“We never set out to run a shop. We set out to work leather.”Hattie & Rose, on their website
They’re closing the shop, not giving up the craft. That was reason enough for me.
See what’s left — 80% off“Will it actually last?”
This is the one I can’t fully answer. Mine is only a few weeks old, so I can’t tell you what it will look like in ten years.
What I can tell you is this. The leather has already gone a shade deeper on the corners I touch most, which their website says it will. The straps haven’t budged. And it doesn’t feel like something that was made to be replaced next season.
That’s as honest as I can be right now.
“What if I don’t like it when it turns up?”
The product page says thirty days, money back. I didn’t need it.
What turned up on the Thursday
Mine came on a Thursday. The Camille, in brown, the same one I’d seen at Woolies. It was $374.95. I paid $74.95, and the shipping was free.
The first thing I noticed wasn’t the colour. It was that when I put it on the passenger seat, it stayed where I put it. I sat in the driveway for a second thinking, well. That’s all it ever had to do.
Nobody had ever asked
Two weeks later, the woman at the chemist asked me where I got it.
Then my physio.
Then a girl on the register at Big W who can’t have been twenty-two.
I’m 58. Nobody had ever asked me about anything I own.
Three by the front door
There are three of them by the front door now. The Camille first. Then a small black crossbody, which my daughter picked and which I pretended to buy for her. Then a dark brown tote I have not explained to anyone.
That is not a sensible number of bags for one woman. I’ve made my peace with it.
If you’ve been buying the same bag off the same rack for years, have a look at what they have left before the shelves are empty. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Lorraine
Camille – Shoulder Bag
Handmade by Hattie & Rose · 22 years at the bench
$374.95$74.9580% OFF
- Stays upright where you put it
- Straps stitched through, not glued on
- Leather that softens and deepens in colour the longer you carry it
- Brown, black or grey · about 30 × 25 × 10 cm
- A free $20 gift card with every order
- Free tracked shipping · 30-day money back
Hattie & Rose are winding down after twenty-two years.
When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Lorraine Baxter lives in Bendigo, Victoria. She ordered her first Hattie & Rose bag in October 2026 and lasted two weeks before ordering her second.
Advertisement. This story is a dramatization; names and photos are illustrative.
Hattie & Rose · Handmade leather · Free tracked shipping