The Art of Styling your Basket Bag

using scarves & a belt

I’ll get into my personal stance on handbags in another post on another day but its very specific; I don’t purchase them often and when I do they fit within a few categories; basket bags being one of those slots. Basket bags are just easy, they go with almost everything and they always look chic. I didn’t own a classic Jane Birkin style basket bag yet and had been thinking about purchasing one. Then I spotted this bag somewhere (very possibly on Ginny Misner’s substack Finds) while searching for my daughter’s Easter Basket and realized I could kill two birds with one stone.

$28.99 basket from Amazon, I got the size small. I think the medium could be great too and is probably closer to the size Jane Birkin used.

When the basket arrived I removed the black ribbon and the little strip that attaches the lid to the base. For Easter egg hunting purposes I tied a pale green swedish ribbon on the handle from this amazing site (which I recently discovered through Sara Covey’s substack Analog Notes) and as a side note it is FULL of things you never knew you needed, or you knew, but never knew where to look for them, for holidays in particular). The day after Easter that sweet green ribbon came off, the Easter Bunny’s gifts were dumped out and I set to styling my basket bag. (Note* My 20 month old daughter does not seem to mind that we are now sharing her basket)

As I may have mentioned, most of my things are in storage as my family and I decided to give up our NYC apartment last summer and move to Honolulu for a bit and do some traveling. So, I took the 4 scarves I currently have in my possession ( 3 of which are animal print; if you’ve been following my substack or instagram you will know I’m in my animal print era) and 1 belt. And wow, once you start styling your basket bag, the options and combinations truly seem endless. I was sending some examples to a friend who was helping me to come up with some clever names for the styles and when I was on about my 50th iteration and she came back with “The Toothache” because it reminded her of a cartoon character with such an ailment, I knew it was time to stop. While I love each of the below 6 ways on their own, the magic really happens when you start to combo them. See a breakdown of each style followed by some fun ways to combine them.

Left to right: THE CLASSIC, THE JAM JAR, THE SARONG, THE BELT, THE TWIST, THE WRAP AROUND

The Jam Jar (starting here as the classic is pretty self explanatory)

I used a 22” x 22” scarf, folded it in half diagonally so it’s doubled and gathered it up and tied it in a knot on the bottom of the lid (center photo).

The Sarong

You can tie the double knot at the side of the basket or the center and play with gathering it more or less and if you have a little bit of tip sticking out at the bottom you can leave it or tuck it in.

The Belt

I saw a skinny Hermes belt wrapped around a basket somewhere recently and that inspired this. I probably would have gone for a skinnier belt but this is the only one I have around and I ended up liking how it looks. As the basket is clearly much smaller than my waist I just pushed the prong aside and adjusted as needed until the belt was snug (last photo). Then I took clear packing tape and made a loop so it was double sided and stuck the belt to itself and it stays there quite nicely & looks rather clean (middle photo).

The Twist

These scarves are both 22” x 22” and the length is perfect for doing this on this size basket. in terms of the4 “pigtails” being about the length of the basket body. You can play with how much basket you want showing by twisting the scarf more (middle photo) or letting it be more full and cover the handle more (last photo)

The Wrap-Around

I used a longer scarf for this (28'“ x 28”) 1st photo: is just folded diagonally in half and then folded onto itself until the width you would lie, wrapped around the basket body and tied with a tail hanging at the side. 2nd photo: I left the scarf a little wider and instead of leaving the tail hanging I wrapped it around itself and tied a little knot at the side. 3rd photo: Instead of tying it around the body like in the 1st photo I tied it up around the handle which gives it quite a different vibe!

Ok, now finally to the good stuff, mixing and matching scarves and combining all the different styles. Experiment with the different techniques using slightly different sized and shaped scarves for different looks.

The Jam Jar + The Classic, The Jam Jar + The Belt, The Jam Jar + The Wrap Around, The Twist + The Wrap Around, The Jam Jar + The Sarong, The Jam Jar + The Wrap Around.

The Jam Jar, The Jam Jar + The Belt, The Jam Jar + The Wrap Around. I’m not doing the jeans that I’m wearing in all 3 photos justice but they just feel so good and they look good and I’ve been living in them. A dark dusty blue that almost reads black. Here are the shoes in the middle photo, my friend Marco with excellent taste proclaims them the shoes of the summer.

All the scarves I used are vintage or second hand found on Etsy & the RealReal except for the skinny Rixo one which is available here in a bright summer print and in gold, both would be very chic in the Wrap Around. Most of you can probably do a lot of these things with belts and scarves already sitting in your closet but if you’re so inclined to make a new summer scarf purchase i’ve put together some favorites here. Note the size before you order as i’ve included a variety of sizes to accommodate different baskets sizes. The size also does not have to be an exact science, you may just be required to do some jujing. Starting at $15 and up. Enjoy & happy basket bag styling!

Measurements of the scarves I used for reference:

• vintage Liz Claiborne zebra print w/ leopard print border: 28” x 28”

• Leopard motif w/ leopard print border 22” x 22”

• Rixo skinny leopard print 30” x 4”

• Green, black & red floral print 22 x 22

xx

Jamie