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I can’t wait for tomorrow night. I’m going for dinner with 11 other ladies, many of whom have kids, and we’re going to drink wine, swear and talk rubbish ’like the old days’ – with the food a mere backdrop to proceedings.
Tomorrow night is a clutch night.
Why? Because clutch bags are up there with stilettos as the most unsuitable thing with which to accessorise, when in the company of children. Therefore they should absolutely be brought out and paraded when you are not.
Being crap at wearing heels (despite being 5ft 2”) a clutch is my way
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of adding instant impracticality to an evening look. A clutch to me shouts to passersby: ’look, I’m so carefree that my hands have nothing better to do than hold this clutch!’
You see, hands are something that you need to use – constantly – when you’re with kids (for a million different reasons, natch), and if you’re holding something as impractical as a clutch bag during kid time, you’d be incapacitated. It would get shoved under your arm or thrown on the floor in a nanosecond while you ’sorted something out’ superwoman style.
When
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motherhood strikes we gradually stop holding things any more – because hands might be needed in the blink of an eye, and woe-betide the mother who can’t act quickly and swoop in with her magic, wizard finger-wands to fix any problem under the sun.
We do of course hold wet-wipes, and snotty tissues, and toy cars, and apple cores, and a multitude of other things that we need, or that randomly get passed to us.
So on occasions when out child-free, I think hands deserve to be tied up (not literally) as a mark of respect. They deserve to feel useful in
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a more glamorous way, to be attention grabbers for the right reasons, to slow down, to linger over something beautiful, and caress something that oozes quality. They deserve to be occupied with a sartorial ’Do Not Disturb’ sign.
A super stylish clutch bag does just that – a selection of my dream clutches are above. Personally I’ll be rocking a lovely gold vintage one I’ve had for years and that hardly holds a thing (no room for wet wipes that’s for sure).
In fact, holding a clutch bag in one hand and a drink in the other means you’re rendered
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pretty useless. Which is exactly how we want to be on Nights Off.
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Molly Gunn - 28 Sep 13
I can’t wait for tomorrow night. I’m going for dinner with 11 other ladies, many of whom have kids, and we’re going to drink wine, swear and talk rubbish ‘like the old days’ – with the food a mere backdrop to proceedings.
Tomorrow night is a clutch night.
Why? Because clutch bags are up there with stilettos as the most unsuitable thing with which to accessorise, when in the company of children. Therefore they should absolutely be brought out and paraded when you are not.
Being crap at wearing heels (despite being 5ft 2″) a clutch is my way of adding instant impracticality to an evening look. A clutch to me shouts to passersby: ‘look, I’m so carefree that my hands have nothing better to do than hold this clutch!’
You see, hands are something that you need to use – constantly – when you’re with kids (for a million different reasons, natch), and if you’re holding something as impractical as a clutch bag during kid time, you’d be incapacitated. It would get shoved under your arm or thrown on the floor in a nanosecond while you ‘sorted something out’ superwoman style.
When motherhood strikes we gradually stop holding things any more – because hands might be needed in the blink of an eye, and woe-betide the mother who can’t act quickly and swoop in with her magic, wizard finger-wands to fix any problem under the sun.
We do of course hold wet-wipes, and snotty tissues, and toy cars, and apple cores, and a multitude of other things that we need, or that randomly get passed to us.
So on occasions when out child-free, I think hands deserve to be tied up (not literally) as a mark of respect. They deserve to feel useful in a more glamorous way, to be attention grabbers for the right reasons, to slow down, to linger over something beautiful, and caress something that oozes quality. They deserve to be occupied with a sartorial ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.
A super stylish clutch bag does just that – a selection of my dream clutches are above. Personally I’ll be rocking a lovely gold vintage one I’ve had for years and that hardly holds a thing (no room for wet wipes that’s for sure).
In fact, holding a clutch bag in one hand and a drink in the other means you’re rendered pretty useless. Which is exactly how we want to be on Nights Off.
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Molly Gunn is the Curator of Goodness at Selfish Mother, a site she created for likeminded women in 2013. Molly has been a journalist for over 15 years, starting out on fashion desks at The Guardian, The Telegraph & ES Magazine before going freelance in 2006 to write for publications including Red, Stella, Grazia, Net-A-Porter and ELLE. She now edits Selfish Mother and creates #GoodTees which are sold via TheFMLYStore.com and John Lewis and have so far raised £650K for charity. Molly is mother to Rafferty, 5, Fox, 3 and baby Liberty. Molly is married to Tom, aka music producer Tee Mango and founder of Millionhands. They live, work and play in Somerset.
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