Hermes Picotin Lock 18 CM Bag Handmade In Taurillon Clemence Leather Silver Hardware 93 Orange

Why is orange so hard to get right? Because one degree too warm and it turns rust; one too sweet and it turns powder. This one lands in the narrow band between – bright the way tangerine peel is bright, with a clean, almost bitter edge. It is a colour with a bite, not a candy.

Eighteen centimetres in both directions, thirteen through the middle, the Picotin 18 in Taurillon Clemence with silver hardware. The cool metal is the right call here: it keeps the orange crisp instead of syrupy, and the pebbled grain gives the surface just enough texture to hold the colour without glare.

It is my beach-and-market bag. Phone, keys, a cardholder and a stick of sunscreen ride inside, with sand brushed off the pebbles at the end of the day – which, incidentally, the grain resists better than smooth leather would.

The honest caveat is that orange is a mood for most people, not a neutral, and in flat winter light it can feel louder than it did in July. If you keep your wardrobe in denim, white and tan, it will surprise you how often you reach for it anyway.

A last word of caution and encouragement: orange makes friends fast and ages slowly. Give it sun, give it denim, and give it a wipe when the pebbles collect dust, and this bag will out-colour everything else in the closet. It has become, without my planning it, the bag my friends borrow most.