SHOW US YOUR PURSE
• Name: Libby Winters
• Occupation: Actress who plays Sophie in "Mamma Mia!" at Mandalay Bay
• Occasion: Starring in my first big production
• What kind of handbag? The bag is by a designer named Bliss Lau, a 26 year old Hawaiian woman who now lives and works in New York. It is her "large pleat" design and is made of caribou cow leather with brass hardware.
• How much did it cost? On sale for $300, originally $500.
• Where did you get it? I got it at a boutique in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (my stomping ground!) called Illy on North Eighth and Driggs.
• Tell us about the first handbag you ever bought. My first real handbag my mom bought for me when I first moved to New York. It was literally like the second day I had been in the city and my mom had come with me from Minnesota to help me move into my apartment. We met up with a friend of hers who lives on Long Island and she took us on a little tour of some parts of the city. We went into Macy’s or Saks, or some big department store and started looking at handbags. Being from Minnesota and then going to college in Walla Walla, Wash., I had never felt the need for a nice handbag, I always used a backpack or a shoulder bag. So when my mom pulled this Coach tote off the shelf and said, "What about this one?" I was like "That’s too fancy for me!" It really seemed very luxurious to me at the time. But it was just this cute, summery Coach tote that now seems like no big deal to me.
• What do you like about this handbag? In New York, my bag was like my locker. It’s so big because I wanted something that would fit running shoes, a water bottle, a few headshots, something to read on the subway and lunch. So it had to be kind of huge. I like that it has a really natural look, it’s really soft, tan leather but there’s a little edge to it with the brass rivets along the outside and it has that kind of hobo-esque shape that makes it a little more urban.
• How many handbags do you own? I don’t own many bags. I’ve bought three in the past three years so I guess I buy one every year and I use it until it falls apart and then I have to get a new one. I’m very practical about it.
• What’s the most you ever paid for a handbag? $300 for this one.
• Image is … effortless, natural beauty.
• What’s in your handbag? Clockwise from top: Nike tank top, New Yorker magazine, T-Mobile BlackBerry, Loreal lip gloss, bottle opener and BCBG sunglasses.
