Plastic Covered Handbag with Berry Embroidery. 1960s. Maker: Unknown. Ivory fabric purse with an embroidered pattern of green leaves, mauve and lavender berries, and silver and white stems. It also has faux pearls, a silver chain handle and an unusual white plastic front frame piece. The fabric is covered in thick plastic and it has a plastic inner pocket.

What’s not so great about these plastic-covered bags—and, if you read this blog regularly, you know I have… ahem… a few—is that the idea of keeping a cloth purse clean by enveloping it in plastic—if that, indeed was the idea—was a flop. You’ll find many of these with a sticky film, water damage or dirt from age and storage. But that's OK. They may not be very resistant, but I can’t resist them, either.