Hermes Kelly 25 Bag Handmade In Epsom Calfskin Leather Silver Hardware 3I Vert Criquent

Vert Criquet is what happens when green decides to be a dessert: a sharp, bright cricket-green with yellow sitting under the green, brighter than most of what passes for green in handbags. Sprung onto Epsom’s pressed surface, it is almost edible, and the Kelly 25 keeps the portion size reasonable.

This is a color that asks for white, denim, navy and stone. It laughs at an all-black outfit and taunts anything purple. Worn against a light summer suit, it has the effect of a perfectly timed sentence; you notice when it arrives. Put it on in March and the calendar has to catch up.

Silver hardware is the only correct metal here. Gold would turn the green soft and vegetal, and this green wants to stay green.

This 25 x 17 x 7 cm shell holds the daily core and nothing else, phone, cardholder, keys, lipstick, and the Epsom structure means the bag keeps an orderly outline over a lunch table. I have carried mine to a garden party, a family dinner and a Tuesday errand run; it improved all three.

An honest word: this exact green is not a neutral and never will be. If you coordinate your bags to your outfits, Vert Criquet will make you work; if you treat color as the outfit’s event, it will make everything around it look deliberate. Know which person you are before you commit. The bag is unforgiving in the best sense.