Lotus Tote Bag

Deep wine, and a lotus opened the whole way out.

Every petal is outlined in hairline gold and filled cream at the tip, blush lower down, with fine gold veining down the whole of each one. The seed pod sits gold and pitted at the heart, half covered by the one petal that leans forward over it. A spray of slim sage leaves comes in to each side. Three loose petals drift above the flower, and gold sparks are scattered around it: four-pointed ones, and one bigger star with long rays.

The other face, and the gold line underneath it

Turn the bag and the same flower has been taken apart and rebuilt out of flat shapes: dusty plum and sage on one half, cream and blush on the other, split down the middle by a gold stem that carries on rising above the petals and finishes in a short run of gold dots. Below the flower that same stem drops and turns into an unalome: two rows of loops folded into each other, then a spiral that winds round on itself two and a half times before it stops. Six blush petals fall loose around it. If you know what the mark means you will not need telling; if you do not, it reads as a very pretty piece of gold line work, and both of those are fine by us.

And the wine is not one wine

A mandala is laid into the corners a half tone darker than the ground, henna-fine, arcs of petals and dotted lace coming in from the edges. In flat light you will miss it. Carry the bag past a window and it arrives.

The bag itself, plainly

Handles

A pair of them in black webbing, flat-woven and matte, sunk deep into the body.

Shape

A box shape with a flat panel across the bottom.

Top corner

A little pull tab sits tucked into one corner.

Print

Corner to corner, on both faces, and the two faces are two different pictures.

Yours does not exist yet. It is run off once you have asked for one, which is the reason the shop cannot run out of this design on you, and the reason yours, five to ten working days in the making, belonged to nobody before you.