Accessories for your accessories?

AJLI did a great job with our totes at this conference.  I can’t bring myself to call them “complimentary” because the conference registration fee certainly covers the tote, the materials, the meals and the first-rate speakers, but those of you attending conferences regularly know you can’t take it for granted that you’ll get anything you care to even cart home…

This one’s a keeper.  It’s something I MIGHT have even purchased for myself if it hadn’t been “given” to me.  I’m still pondering having a zipper added on the inside, very top…  Do I take it to a tailor or a shoe repair place?  It’s not a heavy canvas material, which is nice, because that makes it lighter to carry, even when stuffed with a notebook of conference materials, my always-present “lab book” notebook, and an iPad.  I like it so well it’s become my “transition” bag. 

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s League bag #3…

1. The regular JLC Vineyard Vines bag that is ALWAYS in the car or at my side, chocked full of everything a roaming incoming president of a local non-profit might possibly need.  The lab book is generally in there, but I’m taking notes at the transition meetings, so… 
2. The current-year Emily Couric Community Advocacy Award bag, which still holds two copies of every application.  One set will get filed in the official ECCAA notebook to be passed along to the next President Elect, and then after our Community Service Recognition Ceremony later this month, THAT bag will be retired.  (Read:  THROWN OUT.  There’s a reason I haven’t shared the winter leadership conference bag with you.  Hem.)
3. See above… the lovely, preppy, summery tote that will see me through the transition process.

Now, back to the subject of this post.  I have scoffed (or flat-out made fun of) the trend to tie a perfectly good scarf on a handbag.  I may have SNOL’d right there in front of God and everybody in San Fran when the nice AJLI staffer handed me my tote with its scarf tied on.  And then, I caught myself re-tying said scarf, because my stepmom is the bow-tying queen of the free world, and I knew I could do better.

… and then, Friday morning, one color blocking fashionista used said scarf as a belt (I do this ALL the time, not that you’d know… but I do), and did it so well the incoming President of all of AJLI called her up front in front of all the other incoming presidents to strut her stuff.  (She had on a red pencil skirt and a … coral? blouse.  Even if I can’t remember details and didn’t take a picture, trust me; this scarf-belt worked and worked well.)

Anyway, as they did with the similarly styled black tote from the fall conference, they tucked a little JL logo on a sewn-in, exterior tag.   Nothing like some discrete marketing, eh?

There are also interior slip pockets.  If Big Buddha doesn’t hold up, I’ll definitely have a zipper added to the top of this bag and keep on gettin’ it.  That is, right after y’all tell me where to go to get said zipper installed…

How do you feel about accessories for your accessories?