Online - March 03, 2006

The Name Game

Emily by Emily Handbags

What’s in a name?

If you’re an Emily, are you an old-fashioned girl like Auntie Em or an ass-kicking Indigo Girl like Emily Saliers?

If you’re handbag designer Emily Wallach, you’re both, which might be why you call your collection Emily by Emily. And you give your bags names that tell a story.

Her fall 2005 line was named for NYC streets (Broome, Orchard, Perry). Spring 2006, which includes all kinds of styles (big and small, fringed and studded, slouchy and structured, striped and solid), introduces more characters, like Mykonos, Monte Carlo, and Wailea (beaches she hopes to visit one day) and Hadley, Hudson, and Hopper — hip, androgynous monikers inspired, no doubt, by the pregnant Wallach’s spin through the modern girl’s baby-naming machine.

Now, if only the Ipanema came with an all-expenses-paid trip to Brazil.

We’d call that one excellent accessory.

Available online at shopemilybyemily.com.