Hermes Kelly 2424 24/24 Bag 21CM Handmade In Evercolor and Swift Calfskin Leather Gold Hardware 37 Gold

Full gold-on-gold was the combination I resisted longest. Then I borrowed one for a weekend and understood: this mini is not loud, it is warm. In summer light it looks like polished wheat, and in winter, under lamps, it reads closer to amber.

At twenty-one by sixteen by twelve centimetres it is the same frame as every mini in this family, but the Evercolor surface takes the gold dye so evenly that the bag seems cut from one piece. The hardware matches rather than contrasts, which is either exactly the point or exactly the problem, depending on who is looking.

I carry a phone, a keyring and a card case in it, and genuinely nothing else, because a monochrome bag this sure of itself does not need help. It came with me to an autumn wedding and to more lunch tables than I can count, and it has never once been the shyest thing at either.

One caution, and it concerns your closet rather than the bag: tonal gold flatters camel, chocolate, olive and cream, and can turn strange beside an icy grey or an acid green. Try it against your coat before you commit. The fittings also prefer an occasional polish to keep their shine honest.

For something that behaves like jewellery without being fragile, this is the one I reach for when the day deserves a warm glow. It is also the one my mother borrows, which says something about the range of a monochrome bag.