Hermes Picotin Lock 22 CM Bag Handmade In Taurillon Clemence Leather Silver Hardware 3W Prunoir

Prunoir is nearly black until the sun decides otherwise — an aubergine deep enough that the purple only confesses in daylight. On the Picotin’s round, open bucket it reads less like a bag than a small dark companion with excellent manners. It is also the most tactile bag in my house — visitors reach for it before they say hello.

The Picotin Lock 22 measures twenty-two centimetres across, twenty-one tall and eighteen deep, and it swallows more than its silhouette suggests: a paperback, a phone, a wallet, keys and a slim water bottle with the lid tight, and still room to rummage. On a table it sits like a small leather cup and never needs propping up.

The closure is the detail worth having — a leather tab threaded through a metal lock at the base of the roulé handles. It takes one second longer than a magnetic snap and holds a great deal more safely, which on a crowded train is the whole argument. The silver hardware is the quietest combination in the collection, which on a near-black bag is saying something.

Clemence drapes and softens around whatever you carry, so the bag takes a slightly different shape every day. The silver hardware stays almost invisible against the near black, which on evenings out is exactly what I want.

Honest: buckets have no interior pockets, and small things pool in the base. I carry two pouches — keys in one, coins and cards in the other — and the flaw disappears entirely.