Let’s Chat About The Coach Riley Handbag!
Hello Friends! I’m back again and ready to chat a little more Coach with you all! As I’m sure you all know by now, I LOVE Coach handbags. Each season they keep coming out with brilliant designs. I’m talking stunning leather, beautiful finishes, chunky brass hardware and really cool, edgy, 70’s inspired designs. They are the kind of bags that you can wear to work, bars and festivals. And best of all, they are the kind of bags that get better with age; each beer stain and smudge of sun cream just adding to it’s patina. Today we are chatting about the Coach Riley Handbag!
Lining
The inside of the flap is lined with soft contrasting leather, it’s kind of a pinky claret maroon colour (maybe look at the photo, that’s a terrible description of the colour!) the rest of the bag is lined in fabric of the same colour. The inside Coach label is made of classic think tan leather. Inside the bag there is one zipper section, three open sections and one tiny little slip pocket big enough for a bank / Oyster card. The bag is slimline but as you fill the three main sections of the bag it starts to fill out, again, I’ve tried to show this in the images!
Quality
I feel like you must all be SO bored of me saying this, but the quality of the Coach Riley handbag is impeccable! It’s lovely quality thick, coated canvas with perfectly finished visible stitching and chunky brass hardware (just an FYI, I love this hardware, it’s soooo much like the brass on my mums saddle). As for the paint effect on the coated canvas, this is possibly the part of the bag I’m most impressed with. It’s got to be digitally printed onto the bag, but it sits so nicely on top of the coated canvas (rather than part of the print, if that makes sense) and it has a really nice ‘organic’ feel to it; it feels and looks genuinely hand-painted. Also, I have run my nails along the paint, including the edges of the paint meets the printed coated canvas and there is no chance of this bad boy moving / chipping / flaking /peeling off. The leather trim is refined calf leather and whilst it’s treated so it’s hardwearing, it’s still smooth, soft and generally just a lovely finish.
Branding
As you might have noticed, the Coach Riley handbag is quite heavily branded with the Coach ‘C’ monogram on the coated canvas, however this is made less obvious with the floral painting design. I really love the fact that they have kept the clasp of the Riley really simple with an understated turnlock clasp which is free of branding. On the strap clips there’s some subtle Coach branding, as well as on the strap buckle. And of course, there is a horse and cart logo in metal on the luggage tag, which is removable. Aside from that, the only other branding on the bag is the large leather label on the inside. If you ask me, it’s the perfect amount of branding!
Where To Wear & How To Style The Riley
For me, the Riley is quite a casual bag. It’s a bit like a wallet on a chain handbag, but with a little more room and a more comfortable to carry leather strap. I love the fact that it’s quite streamline if you travel light, but if you cram more in, it fills out and looks like a chunkier handbag. It’s probably a great travel bag too as it has a nice amount of space for passport / tickets / phone / wallet / cash / portable charger etc. For me, it’s the perfect weekend handbag, nice and lightweight to carry over your shoulder or wear as a crossbody bag without it pulling you down. Perfect with jeans and a jacket, a vintage dress and denim jacket. Easy sneezy and nice and casual! However, as cute as it would be with a simple white shirt, jeans and blazer, I’ll be wearing this bag with a floaty vintage style maxi dress
Three Ways To Wear
The Riley Classic can be worn in three ways, over the shoulder, as a cross body bag or as a clutch, as the strap can be unclipped and is completely detachable. The strap has a 22″ drop and can be altered in length depending on your height and the way you like to style your bags. Alternatively, you could buy an additional strap and wear your bag as a shorter shoulder bag. It’s a fun way to customise you bag! Speaking of customising your bag, there’s space to add some bag charms on to the D-rings where the strap is attached, but for me, it’s not needed. There’s enough going on with this bag!
Price
The Coach Riley handbags come in a few different variations, there’s the classic, which you see here in this blog post. There’s the Riley Shoulder Bag, The Riley Top Handle and there’s also the Riley Chain Clutch. Lots of Riley’s, all fabulous! Many of them come in the monogrammed coated canvas, but some of them come in all leather and the majority of them are in neutral shades. The Riley shoulder bags and the Riley Top handle bags also have a larger Coach emblem on them and there’s also a few types of the Riley classic which have been given the Coach X Disney makeover, which are REALLY cute! Phew! Anyway I hope I didn’t loose you there! OK! So let’s chat price, the Riley’s start at about £275 and go up to £750 for the mega-fancy Uber-embellished ones. Mine is £450 with the flowers, but without flowers it’s £395. As for the Disney X Coach bags, they are £550. In short, you can get a pretty amazing Coach Riley bag for about £500 and possibly have some change. Take a look at all the Riley bags HERE.
What Else Do You Need To Know…
So let’s have a think…. we’ve discussed the fact that it’s amazing quality, we have also discussed it’s print, the beautiful chunky brass hardware and the price. Now I think it’s time to mention the fact that this bag has the option of adding your monogram to it… for free! YEP! Just add it onto the back of the luggage tag. Just to mention here, I’m a big fan of adding a monogram to luggage tag rather than onto the front of the bag. I think it will date better and not only that, but if you do ever decide to pass this bag onto another owner, you can just take off the luggage tag and do so! When handbags are built to last, like Coach’s are, I think it’s nice to consider that it can have more than one lifetime. I think that’s everything! I love the Coach Riley Bag, I love the way it feels like a wallet-on-chain style bag, but with a little more room, I love the ease of it, the coated canvas and leather trim. I love the painted flowers and contrast lining and in general, I just think it’s a brilliant summer handbag which you can use, love and take everywhere from the shops to the seaside, festivals to beer gardens.
Further Reading….
Finally, if you love Coach and you want to read some other posts, you should check out this one about the Coach Parker Top Handle bag, The Coach Callie bag which is a small wallet on chain style bag, the Coach Bowery Bag, my favourite is the Coach Rogue bag and hopefully this is a nice round up for everyone, a post about lots of different Coach bags and which is the best!
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I hope this post helps, let me know if you have any questions and just so you know, this bag has been loaned to me for the season by the lovely ladies at Coach!
