Marc Jacobs Lola

Many years ago I saw the Marc Jacobs Lola bag, originally from the Fall 2003 collection (I think), and knew I had to have one. The Lola is a medium-sized shoulder bag with a built-in umbrella compartment (and included umbrella), made in Italy from thick, squishy leather and lined with suede. Lola originally retailed for $795, but typically goes for $100-$200 now. They pop up on ebay periodically, but rarely in colors other than cream and pink, occasionally in black. I already have too many black bags and don't carry white bags or pink bags, so over time the Lola desire waned.

Recently I picked up a new MJ umbrella bag, the Marc by Marc Jacobs Yo Yo Dot rain tote, and started thinking about Lola again. I did a quick search on ebay and, lo and behold, there was a teal Lola, with umbrella. It's rare to come across a Lola with the original umbrella, and the umbrella this particular Lola arrived with doesn't match perfectly, leading me to believe it's a replacement for the original. It is, however, a blue Marc Jacobs umbrella, so I'm happy to have it. Knowing how precious these seemingly plain umbrellas are, though, I'm not taking many chances and I've opted to carry Lola with my very durable, totally replaceable umbrella from Naked & Angry. I also think the color scheme works well with the dark teal color of the bag.
The hardware on Lola is antiqued brass, with only a couple of small nods to typical Marc Jacobs branding, like the little pushlock on the umbrella compartment flap and the standard-issue Marc Jacobs zipper pulls.

In addition to the brass, there is a bead zipper pull on the external pocket, suspended from a strip of leather. At a distance it appears to be plastic, but when you pick it up you find it's dense and heavy, made from enameled metal. It's touches like these that make me go from liking an accessory to loving it.

On to the interior: the umbrella compartment is lined in light teal canvas. The main bag, as well as the outside pocket, are lined in a lovely teal suede.

 Below you can see Lola (top), my Naked & Angry umbrella (middle) and the MJ umbrella (bottom).

As you can see, this is not a huge bag. The umbrella takes up a good bit of internal space when in its compartment, though using a smaller, ultracompact umbrella mitigates that a bit.

I can, however, squeeze my essentials in: wallet, agenda, train card case, ID badge, lip gloss, etc. If I'm feeling really light, I'll stick my most-needed cards in the agenda and skip the wallet entirely. Without the umbrella I can fit my B&N nook reader, in its most minimal case, with my Pocket agenda, and a few essentials.

Honestly, the whole Lola journey feels like kismet, this is not a bag that would have worked with a Personal-size agenda, and this one basically fell in my lap just a couple of weeks after I switched to Pocket-size. My svelte Kate Spade Pocket Debra also fits so well in this bag, it's like a match made in heaven.