Living out here on the Island, we don't exactly stand on the whetted cutting edge of fashion, unless it's fleece-related. However, I have a secret weapon. (The key to Island life is the acquiring of secret weapons having to do with cultural change.) On the fashion front, which I quitted in about 1992 due to unforseen aging, I have my niece. She's 15. She knows.

Every now and again I get bowled over by an accessory or something but I always check it with her first just to make sure that it didn't come around in 2004 and die a painful death in the halls of high schools around the country before I found it.

This time I ran into a lovely woven bag that was a certain familiar pearlescent grey reminiscent of, well, the fog lifting off Venice. At closer inspection this bag turned out to be made of seatbelts. I was enchanted. Never saw such a thing before. Called niece. She didn't exactly let me down easy.
"They came and went with gum wrapper purses," she said.

But they're so well made-- so strong, so silent, with such nice findings! Is there not an argument here for classic? I weep that fashion has passed them by! Tell me it's not true. Or I will sob into my pashmina.
http://www.seatbeltbags.com/