Trend: Oversize

There's a trend I've noticed lately...people are not just looking for big bags or totes, they want the biggest, roomiest bags they can find, especially for the farmers market. I sell a lot of the XXL Moroccan baskets, but they are expensive and bulky. I see a lot of bags lately that made of cotton, sometimes synthetic; anything organic is prefered by shoppers, vs synthetic. The handles are best really long. You don't see them filled; the look is to have your items floating down in the bottom of the bag, which goes over the shoulder but hangs down low...Sorta slouchy.

You could fit your small child in some of these bags, and they were often originally intended for something else: a shopper in Palisades last weekend had a bag that was the point of sale packaging for a king size comforter from Anthropologie, complete with little closure ties. The owner happens to also have one of my XL baskets, but this is what she uses when she forgets the basket. The same day in Palisades a shopper had an enormous bag made of some kind of plastic, but it was very smooth; it squishes up teeny tiny so it's her market bag. Most of these shoppers are using a bag that they got "for free" somewhere. This tells me that if there is a low cost alternative that is stylish and doesn't have someone's advertising on it, they'd buy it. The standard grocery bag size is out of style; too small; people want one ginormous bag, not 5 little ones.. This is a big focus for me for Spring and Summer. More later.

Cargo & Company stocks oversized French cotton bags from Cote Bastide; lovely in ivory linen with grommets and also flax-colored cotton, but they are also expensive.