Byline: MIMI SPENCER

There is an entire menagerie of things I don't want to wear. Slugs, for one. Spiders. Sharks.

Leather Pandora

Swordfish. I wouldn't dream of wearing a mole, vole or chinchilla stole.

But, most of all, I truly, deeply do not want to wear a crocodile.

This aversion is odd, because I am usually persuaded to go for anything that resides at the dizzy height of fashion.

Absolutely everyone is hankering after a crocodile-skin handbag this autumn. It feels like a return to the days when women really did dream about owning a mink, as if a posh coat was the pinnacle of human - well, female - achievement.

Anyone lucky enough to get the mink soon had her sights on a crocodile handbag. It's just what one did in the 1950s, in the same way as one had supper on the table when he got home, and never left the house without a hat.

And yet, here we are in 2005 and what the iPod generation of women really fancy is something natty made from a dead reptile. Barely a single luxe leather fashion house passed up the opportunity to get their teeth into croc and alligator this season. Gucci, Dior, Bottega Veneta. All at it.

Alexander McQueen's first 'signature bag' is a roomy affair.

It comes in crocodile, of course, and is called the 'Novak', after Kim, who starred in Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Postcard Printing Hitchcock heroines are all the rage at the moment. You can be Tippi Hedren, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh (should you fancy wandering around in the nud and screaming like a banshee from behind a shower curtain). You can be anyone, it seems, as long as you develop an accompanying taste for nipped-in waists and reptilian accessories.

Which, for my money, is a tough call. Lizard skin, in particular, is wildly unappealing to the touch.

Stroke it the wrong way and the scales bite back. An alligator bag always gives the impression that if you were to delve around in it for a tissue, say, it would have your arm off.

This current obsession playing out at the upmarket design houses is part of the contemporary taste for bonkers shoes and bags. The zaniest handbags, it seems to me, are reserved for women who carry small dogs in them. You know, the Pup Tarts - Paris Hilton, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears et al. I've heard Diddy (formerly known as P Diddy) keeps a Maltese in a Vuitton bag (coincidence! I keep Maltesers in mine).

So
embroidered patches here's a really crazy idea. For efficiency's sake, make the bag from the dog! Forget the McQueen Novak. Let's have the Gucci Poochie. The Fendi Bitch.

The Mulberry Mongrel.

The all-new Shih-tzu from Miu Miu!

You might find the idea repellent, but using a dog isn't a million miles from using a crocodile to cart around your purse and lipstick. Even if the skin was sustainably and ethically farmed (and there's no guarantee that it was, unless you quiz the manufacturer about the relevant permit under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), it's still a spooky sort of accessory. Seriously, if you'll tote a croc, then why not a dog? At least it would come when you called.

Other articles:
http://www.llw.cc/Blog/View/?965
http://www.lemeridienboston.com/Rapist-who-preyed-on-young-wom.html

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