Byline: By Joanna Peart
Re-using carrier bags does wonders for the environment, but now it has become a trend in itself for modern women. Joanna Peart reports.
Forget Prada and Gucci handbags - carrier bags are fast becoming an accessory for fashion-conscious females.
Re-used by women of all ages to cart around anything and everything, the plastic fantastics from trendy high street stores like Gap, Next and Jane Norman are proving increasingly popular.
Shoppers who don't want the social stigma of carrying bags from well-known bargain shops have been known to transfer their purchases into a more "acceptable" carrier.
It seems the sturdy high-street bag - with a fashionable logo stamped on it, of course, comes up tops.
Celebrities leading the trend include Aussie singer Kylie Minogue, who is all too happy to embrace Top Shop and Oasis rather than maintain an LED Flexible Strip Silicone Series Silicone 5050 air of Versace or shop at Harrods.
The key to supermodel Kate Moss's much-idolised image is also a simple, sporty white singlet, and the design team from Top Shop cottoned on and created a perfect copy for the store.
It instantly became a hit with many Moss-wannabes who started to snap it up, and even Kate herself nipped into a London store to grab a couple of the trendy tops.
Jim Goudie, a consumer psychologist at Northumbria University, specialises in people's shopping habits.
He says it is easy to tell how fashion conscious people are by the store bags they re-use to carry their bits and bobs around in. "It is to do with status because people like to boast about the fact they have been to certain types of shops," explains Jim.
"People don't carry around lower class bags because they don't want to be associated with them."
In the last 10 years shopaholic celebrities like Victoria Beckham have become a role model for modern women.
"It mostly tends to be Hermes Fake Handbags younger women, but it is a fact of life that women, whatever their age, want to improve their status," adds Jim.
It's not uncommon to spot women in expensive suits swishing past people on the high street with carrier bags from the shops that say `yes, I am rich and fashionable enough to buy something from here'.
Others with a tighter budget find themselves doing the same thing to keep up a certain image - even though they might have only set foot in a certain store once and saved the bag because it makes them look good.
Shopping shows like the BBC's Looking Good, hosted by Lowri Turner, and Trinny and Susannah's What Not To Wear, have increased women's awareness of style, and how to get it.
On any busy high street, the names of top fashion houses are stamped across glossy carrier bags, influencing potential customers and creating `wish lists'.
At the other end of the scale, famous designers dress celebrities for glamorous showbiz events, in the hope their sales will increase if they are crowned top of the frocks.
Millions of women looked on in envy at the parade of Gucci, Versace and Valentino designs that floated up the red carpet at this year's Oscars.
Best actress winner Charlize Theron wowed the crowds in her golden strappy dress with front
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