Trends in Architecture and Engineering

These trends toward rope and straps are occurring world-wide, in architecture and engineering, from the Eiffel Tower to the Olympic stadium in China. Even subway routes are designed like loops of rope. Its a major un-recognized direction -- and the longer the strap and the more like rope, the hotter the item. You can't tell it in the pictures above, but the hot colors in architecture are showing up in my study.

Rope - the overlapping trend

My hypothesis is that the handbag strap trend is influencing and being influenced by overlapping trends, like climbing rope used by mountain climbers

Personal Observations

When I zero in on handbags being displayed for sale, I see more evidence of this trend. Handles are going out, straps are coming in.

Scanning the Media

I have been looking in a variety of media sources (popular press, trade magazines, and newspapers and TV) to see the kinds of media coverage of handbags. A subtle thing to note is that women seem to choose handbags with straps. I think this is an emerging trend.