Hermes Kelly Mini 2 19CM Bag Handmade In KK Ostrich Leather from South Africa Gold Hardware 81 Gris Tourterlle

Grey is the quietest colour you can put ostrich in, and dove grey hides none of its texture — the quills still catch the light like water on stone, they just do it in a whisper. Colour 81 is warm-grey rather than cold, and with gold hardware the whole bag settles into something gentle and very composed.

This is the ostrich to buy if you want the material without the announcement. Nobody clocks it as an exotic from a distance; up close, the raised follicles give it away, and that delayed recognition is half the pleasure. The hide from South Africa is soft, light and famously forgiving in rain for an exotic, and gold hardware sits on it without a hint of stress.

Inside 19 x 12 x 5.5 cm goes a phone, a cardholder, keys, one lipstick. Mine has been to offices, dinners and airports and has never once been the loudest bag in the room, which was precisely the brief.

Honest note: quills flatten where the flap presses and along the base over the years — brushing them gently in one direction revives them, and they never fully vanish. Ostrich also reacts badly to over-conditioning, so go light and rare. And if you genuinely want your exotic to be noticed, this is the wrong colour; in dove grey it stands at the back of the room politely and will stay there.

For a first ostrich, this is the quietest door in.