In the bag

What began as a hobby soon became a life-changing career move for handbag designer, Melissa Del Bono. She talks style, practicality and being adored by the A-list with Nancy Alsop

Above: Melissa del Bono

I am sitting in Melissa Del Bono’s South Kensington studio cooing over and caressing a Gyllenhaal. Lamentably, this vignette is not quite as surreal as it sounds, but if you can’t have the real thing, Del Bono’s exquisite leather weekend bag is the next best. Named after the impish actor, the hold-all comes in a beautiful tan, zips all the way open like a jacket and is as smooth as butter. ‘There were all these bags with names of girls – the Giseles, the Siennas – so I thought, why not use a sexy man’s name?’ explains the softly spoken and understatedly chic designer. ‘We should be carrying him on our arm. It’s a weekend bag but a lot of people use it for their shopping. It’s very light, very soft and squidgy and it comes in basic colours, so that if your boyfriend ends up carrying it on the plane, he won’t get embarrassed or look too camp’.

Del Bono, the creative and business brains behind handbag brand MeliMelo, which has burgeoned exponentially since its launch in 2005 and is now sold internationally, thinks of everything. Not for her the gaudy or impractical so favoured by many a fashion luminary. Instead, a MeliMelo is identifiable not only by its meticulous style considerations, but also by the fact that the bags are indeed themselves considerate. If that sounds strange, then you are either in cohoots with that rare breed of woman who opts against carting the entire contents of her house around with her at all times (just in case, you understand…), or, quite simply, you are not female.

‘This industry is saturated with transient fashions, so I wanted my designs not to be about any big logos – it’s more the matter of the inverted handles which make you carry the bags in an Audrey Hepburn-style way, on the forearm. They look ladylike and elegant but you can put so much in them – your flats and high heels – and still look stylish. It’s about meeting utility with style,’ says Del Bono, adding, ‘Some designers – often men – don’t really know what kind of utility a woman needs. I’ve tried to think about all these things and create a bag that allows you to hold your correct posture and won’t kill you!’ Which is, after all, a bonus.

But the Del Bono story very nearly trod an altogether different path. Having moved here from her native Lipari, one of the impossibly beautiful Aeolian islands, a stone’s throw from Sicily, she triumphantly launched herself as a fashion journalist for Harper’s Bazaar, and latterly tried her hand on the other side of the fence as a press officer for a host of brands from Tanner Krolle to Fortnum’s. Evidently then, Del Bono was a budding fashionista-in-the-making, but it wasn’t until a trip back to Italy with an old boyfriend that she was moved to visit some of the country’s deservedly fêted bag manufacturing factories. With that, she was hooked and the first of a series of incremental steps towards what would ultimately become MeliMelo, darling of the cognoscenti, were taken.

‘It was really born as a hobby – it was something for myself. And then I had people running up to me in the street saying: “Oh my God, I love your bag, where does your bag come from? “ I was like: “Oh, I actually made it for myself.” So I looked into expanding and now here I am. We’re selling in 30 shops round the world, from Japan to Dubai to Milan.’ Del Bono still seems rather incredulous at her meteorological rise, but she can rest assured that success is well-deserved. Since she debuted, she has been pushing boundaries and experimenting creatively – happily all to very aesthetic effect.

Take, for example, the BB bag, the signature MeliMelo design; it is unimaginably soft and comes in a variety of sizes and shades – most notably in a range of metallics which, though ubiquitous now, back in 2005 were used exclusively by Del Bono and fellow pioneer, Bottega Veneta. ‘It is called BB after Brigitte Bardot – I just imagined her walking along in St Tropez, carrying her bag on her forearm – there’s a certain style of woman who carries it that way.’ Propitiously for Del Bono, a number of these such women are among those whose pictures adorn the daily glossies and whose style is devotedly aped by girls the world over. Among them?

MeliMelo disciples include clotheshorse Sienna Miller, immaculate Kate Middleton, Angelina Jolie and Nicole Richie. ‘It’s great when you get pictures of celebrities in different outfits wearing the bag, so you know it’s not just one shot – they really do love the bag,’ Del Bono enthuses. ‘There’s one of Sienna walking down the King’s Road, and there’s one of her at an evening party. The great thing is that it seems to appeal to girls whose style is really different – like Sienna and Kate Middleton.’

One of Del Bono’s quirkier innovations was the limited edition handbag she created just three months after launching the brand in time for fashion week. ‘Every fashionista always needs their little black book, so I had all the telephone numbers, emergency numbers that a girl needs – you know, hairdressers, Bliss Spa for a quick fix manicure, Boujis to dance till dawn, the perfect florist, the perfect place to go for breakfast at the Berkley – and I printed all the numbers on the lining. When you open up the bag, they’re all there,’ she explains. ‘I got O2 to donate sim cards with all the phone numbers already on them and with £30 of calling credit, so people who were coming over for fashion week and didn’t have an English number – like Anna Wintour for example – then had not only an English number, but the low down on all the right places.’ Presumably then, the famously frosty Ms Wintour, is another who counts herself a fan…

In addition to having found a sympathetic manufacturer in Tuscany, Del Bono owes perhaps an even greater debt of gratitude to the women of Italy. ‘They do have an innate sense of style. I mean, I don’t mind buying from TopShop and Zara and mixing it with designer stuff – but the bag and shoes? It’s really important to invest in one good handbag and pair of shoes – that’s how they get it all together, the Italians,’ she says. ‘They might dress plainly but they have the stylish sunglasses, shoes and bags. They’ve got it.’

Of course, Del Bono herself is part of the collective ‘they’; having grown up on Lipari, she used to carry a wicker basket (on her forearm, naturally) in which she kept her creams, books and all other essentials, and in homage, a metallic rendition of the traditional basket can now be seen at MeliMelo.

But as well as finding inspiration in Italy, she is an inveterate globetrotter. After a New Year trip to Kerala, her current muse is India (‘Talk about stylish Italian women – Indian women are so beautiful and have such poise and dignity’), so expect an Eastern-influenced autumn/winter collection. The year before it was Argentina, which in turn inspired the Buenos Aires Collection – complete with tactile plaited leather handles recalling horse reins. But when Del Bono is not jetting to far flung destinations, you’ll find her sashaying – bag on arm and perfectly poised – down the Fulham Road, heading straight for her favourite local delicatessen, Luigi’s. ‘I love the boys in there. Even on your greyest day, they put a smile on your face and make you feel gorgeous.’ And the same can quite reasonably be claimed of her beautiful array of bags.

www.melimelo.it