Irregular Choice: Starry Night Bag

You might recall I mentioned in my Irregular Choice handbag collection post back in May, that a new addition had just arrived (seriously it happens every single time I take a group shot). It was the elusive Starry Night from AW15. Elusive to me at least. My priority last season, was to get Forest Fantasy and Swan Lake and the universe never really aligned for me and this bag. Anytime I had cash, it had sold out. It would come back and I either couldn't afford it or pondered if I really needed it (bigger bags are never top of my list) by which time it had gone again. Naturally once it had gone for good, I realised I did really like it and it would've been nice to have in my collection. A couple of months ago after yet further misses (seriously!), I managed to get my hands on a brand new one from eBay.
The bag shape is the same as my King Of The Castle unicorn one. I say it's big, it might not be to others, I'm just very much a small handbag kinda gal. Certainly it's taller than the framed shoulder bags and the oblong shapes like the aforementioned Forest Fantasy. There's three compartments in this. The main area fastens with a magnetic stud at the top. As you'll see from the bag width, it's reasonably wide, so there's a nice sized base in there and it's easy to access. There's further front and back zipped compartments, the full height and length of the bag, great for holding anything valuable. Inside the bag is lined with officially the comfiest, softest lining ever* (*according to me or rather my feet), not that your belongings need to be kept warm like your feet, but it's nice to match! There's also a zipped pocket and mobile phone pouches inside.
The base is metallic black fabric, with metal studs in the corners to keep it dirt free. The bag has two fixed black handles, front and back, which are actually long enough to wear on the shoulder as well as handheld. The bag also comes with an additional longer strap, which clips on at the sides, it's black metallic on one side and snakeskin holographic on the other. Personally, I can't see me ever using it, but I know some will welcome a longer strap. The bag is mainly blue crushed velvet and this was where my hesitation on buying lay. I've never been keen on brown with black or blue with back. Just a personal thing and this combines blue and black. Plus it's crushed velvet...definitely not my favourite fabric. I grew up in the 80's and I'm still not ready for one it's many revivals! That said, it's perfect for this theme. As a night sky, I'm not sure anything other than deep blue crushed velvet would've worked, so I'm willing to get past it in this instance.
The back is plain blue velvet, the front has additional trims. There's a large crescent moon in that fabulous snakeskin holographic material we all love so much and you'll see the piping around the bag is made from the same material. I've said it before, but there's no photographing this damn stuff!  It's so so pretty in the flesh, flashing all sorts of colours, but this is rarely reflected on film unfortunately.  The clouds use the oil-slick blue used on the Tiny Ted shoes from the same season and there's large silver stars sporadically. There's also tiny star sequins with pearls dotted around.
Sitting on the moon is the silhouette of a black furry cat. Now I love kinda dead looking, freaky stuff (remember those "roadkill" cat clutches from New Look a few years back? Loved those) and this is one shabby, scabby, therefore adorable cat! The fur is quite long haired and it's tail, curls round in a fabulously creepy fashion! No doubt there's a witchy feel to this bag, with the choice of fabrics, colours and themes.
The bag is brightened by fantastic purple hearts at the base of all the straps (2 front, 2 back, 2 sides) and they have a wonderful holographic scalloped edge. They are probably my favourite bits, I hadn't appreciated how lovely they were until I saw the bag in real life.
This is another corker of a bag from IC, no less than I'd expect!  As always I'm eagerly awaiting the new season arrivals.  I've no doubt there will be more fabulous handbags in there.  What do you think, do you like this?