glossary
The terms behind brass bags and metal mesh, in plain English — from spoii.world. Deeper reading lives in the guides.
- Alloy
- A metal made by combining two or more elements. Brass (copper + zinc) and bronze (copper + tin) are the classic warm-metal alloys; alloying changes colour, hardness and workability. Copper, brass or bronze? →
- Armour mesh
- Flat-plate metal mesh made of tiny linked tiles rather than rings — the fluid, scale-like surface of many 1920s mesh purses, notably Whiting & Davis pieces.
- Avoska
- The Soviet-era string shopping bag, carried folded 'just in case'. One of the net bag's great regional traditions alongside the Czech síťovka and French filet.
- Baguette bag
- A slim east-west shoulder bag shaped like its namesake loaf, carried close under the arm. A defining silhouette of the Y2K revival.
- Brass
- An alloy of copper and zinc — yellow-gold in tone, ductile at fine gauges, and the wire of choice for knitted metal bags because it bends smoothly without snapping and ages by patina rather than rust. What is a brass bag? →
- Bucket bag
- A tall, round-bottomed bag silhouette that stands open like its namesake, usually with a drawstring or open top.
- Chainmail
- Fabric made of interlocking metal rings, originally armour. Its load-sharing principle — thousands of small links each carrying a little — is the structural ancestor of every metal mesh bag. Metal mesh history →
- Chatelaine
- A Victorian waist-hung clasp carrying useful objects on chains — scissors, keys, and often a small mesh purse. An early home of metal mesh in fashion.
- Concept store
- A retailer whose curation is the product — mixing categories, price points and unknown names into one point of view. Dover Street Market is the reference example. DSM & concept stores →
- Deadstock
- Unsold inventory — fashion's quiet waste stream. Made-to-order production exists specifically to avoid creating it.
- Drop
- A timed, limited product release designed to concentrate demand into a moment. The mechanism behind sell-out designer collabs and streetwear queues. Designer collabs →
- Drotárstvo
- The Slovak folk craft of tinker wirework — mending and weaving household objects from wire — inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2019. Wire craft traditions →
- East-west
- A bag orientation wider than it is tall — the horizontal silhouette of baguette bags and many shoulder bags.
- Filet
- The French net shopping bag — knotted string, folds to a pocket, expands around a market haul. The everyday ancestor of the mesh tote. Mesh market bags →
- Filigree
- Ornamental metalwork of fine twisted wire, a jewellery tradition across Asia and Europe — proof that wire has been treated as thread for centuries.
- Gauge (wire)
- The thickness of a wire. Finer gauges are softer and more knittable; a knitted bag uses wire fine enough to loop like yarn while keeping strength in numbers.
- Hardware
- A bag's metal fittings — clasps, rings, rivets, chain. On mesh bags, hardware does the structural joining that sewing does on cloth.
- It-bag
- A bag that becomes a cultural moment beyond its function — waiting lists, feeds, resale premiums. The Rabanne 1969 is the metal-mesh era's example. The Rabanne 1969 →
- Knitted mesh
- Metal mesh made by working one continuous wire in interlocking loops, like knitting yarn — sheer, stretchy and repairable, unlike linked or woven mesh. Knitted wire bags →
- Lucite
- A trade name for acrylic, used for the sculptural hard-plastic handbags of the 1950s — a reminder that unconventional bag materials are a long tradition.
- Made to order
- Production that begins only when a customer orders — no warehouse stock, no deadstock, a dispatch window instead of same-day shipping. Slow fashion accessories →
- Market bag
- The open, packable shopping bag family — string nets, mesh totes — built to expand around groceries and fold away empty.
- Mesh purse
- The small metal-mesh evening bag of the 1890s-1930s, hand-linked at first and machine-made in the Jazz Age boom. Vintage examples remain plentiful and wearable. Vintage mesh purses →
- One-pouch rule
- The sheer-bag packing convention: keys, cards and anything private live in one opaque pouch; everything else is allowed to show through the mesh. What fits in a mesh tote →
- Packable
- Able to fold or crush flat, weigh little, and recover shape instantly. Knitted mesh is packable by construction — no panels to crease, no stiffener to snap. Packable bags →
- Patina
- The stable surface layer a reactive metal develops with air and handling — on brass, a gradual deepening from bright gold toward antique bronze. Cosmetic, protective, and reversible with a soft cloth. Brass patina guide →
- Raffia
- Palm fibre woven into summer bags and hats — beautiful and breathable, but weakened by water. The material of the basket-bag revival. The Loewe basket bag →
- Ring mesh
- Metal mesh made of small linked rings — chainmail's direct descendant, fluid and scale-like. The construction of the Rabanne 1969 bag, distinct from knitted mesh.
- Rivet
- A permanent metal fastener set through layers of material. On a mesh bag, rivets attach handles where stitching is impossible — a visible, honest joint.
- Silhouette
- A bag's overall shape read at a glance — tote, bucket, baguette, east-west. The first thing recognised and the last thing to date.
- Síťovka
- The Czech knotted string bag, invented as a practical shopping net and now a design-history icon of the market bag family.
- Slow fashion
- The counter-model to trend-cycle production: fewer, better objects, made in small quantities from materials that endure, designed to be repaired and kept. Slow fashion accessories →
- Tarnish
- Surface dulling of a metal by reaction with air and moisture. On brass it forms the patina; a soft dry cloth removes the light stages of it. Brass bag care →
- Tote
- An open-top carrying bag with parallel handles — the workhorse silhouette. Sizing bands and what actually fits are covered in our size guide. Tote bag size guide →
- Verdigris
- The blue-green patina of heavily weathered copper and brass — the Statue of Liberty's colour. On a carried bag it never gets this far; verdigris is decades of outdoor exposure.
- Whiting & Davis
- The Massachusetts mesh maker founded in 1876 — the defining name of the mesh purse era and still producing metal mesh today. The most collected marque in vintage mesh. Buying vintage W&D →
- Wirework
- The craft family of shaping wire into objects — from Slovak tinkering to jewellery filigree to the knitted wire bag. Wire treated as thread, thread treated as structure. Wire craft traditions →
The object all of this vocabulary orbits is Tonsiba — our tote hand-knitted from fine brass wire, £95, made to order.