Iris Tote Bag

A rainbow that knows what it is talking about.

One side is a single rosette opened wide across the black. Magenta and violet at the outer petals, a ring of blue behind them, then green-teal, then a band of gold in fine beadwork, and dead centre a small red bloom with a lit core. Follow it rim to centre and the colour walks the whole way from violet to red.

The other side counts to seven

Turn the bag round and that same idea stands up straight. Seven symbols, one under the next, in one column. Violet heads the column: the crown, petals fanned about an open middle. Under it, indigo, the third eye. Then the throat in blue, its circle held inside a rim of tiny spikes. The heart in green, a six-pointed star built of two triangles. Yellow-gold at the solar plexus, orange at the sacral, and closing the run, red for the root — a triangle pointing down inside a square. Crown up top, root down below, exactly where they go. The women who know will check that before they say anything, and they will find it right.

What the black is doing

It is not flat black. A mandala hides in it half a tone deeper — big petals, dotted lacework, whole sections arriving from the corners — and steps forward only when the bag moves in the light. Gold specks sit scattered over the top. The handles are flat black webbing, and a zip runs along the top with a small black tab to draw it shut.

How it gets made

Both faces are printed, so there is no plain back to hide. And nothing is stacked in a room waiting to be picked: every Iris tote is run off once somebody has asked for one. Nobody can buy the last one out from under you.