Upstaging the Merchandise

LONDON - It was to hell in a handbag basket at Anya Hindmarch.

Arrivals at her 10 a.m. show at the University of Westminster Tuesday, which it is my solemn duty to report included Poppy Delevingne, the model and socialite, and the actor Richard E. Grant, were ushered below ground to the Ambika P3 art gallery, a cavernous space formerly devoted to concrete construction.

A mood of jolly anticipation prevailed - Ms. Hindmarch's productions, like many of her purses, have become known for their elements of humor and surprise - as India.Arie's 'Because I Am a Queen' played affirmingly over the loudspeakers: 'I'm not the average girl from your video, woo/my worth is not determined by the price of my clothes, whoa.'

To quote the esteemed Californian philosopher Cher Horowitz: 'As if!'

But I digress. Diagonal bands of colored lights flashed against the background as models began their promenade, some two by two like the elephant and the kangaroo, wearing white jumpsuits, the better to show off the leather goods. One was clutching a bunch of colorful metallic balloons, like a child on her way to a birthday party.

Straining for a view of the actual merchandise, I felt myself beginning a slow faint. 'That's it,' I thought, clutching helplessly at the elbow of my benchmate, fortunately not a member of the brittle-boned Delevingne family. 'We have reached the absolute saturation point of marketing stimulus. Better cancel Milan.'

But no: It was merely that the runway had revealed itself to be a set of moving platforms, twisting to afford attendees a new perspective of the rows across the way. Realizing this, everyone squealed and - as Ms. Hindmarch and her planners had no doubt calculated - frantically began trying to commit the moment to Vine, the video-sharing app.

Then came the baskets, like the rotating teacup rides at Disney, pushed by break dancers in glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes, who in their carefully choreographed gyrations almost mowed down one of the catwalkers.

In a flash it was over, and if I had been interviewed about Ms. Hindmarch's spring line while emerging from this bizarro underworld (again: 'as if'), I would've been struck dumb, though research afterward indicated it will feature schoolgirlish stickers and clutches printed with chewing-gum logos, a continuation of the Kellogg's cereal and other grocery themes of last season.

Somewhere in heaven, Andy Warhol has clambered out of that can of tomato soup and is taking a long, hot shower.

For Ms. Hindmarch - who made her global reputation with a tote that proudly proclaimed 'I'm Not a Plastic Bag' and who has installed in several of her boutiques 'bespoke' workshops complete with aproned craftspeople and totems of family life - putting such emblems of disposability at the center of a collection seemed an odd swerve indeed.

But there is immense pressure on companies to create easily identifiable accessories that, like the Louis Vuitton Murakami of more than a decade ago, captures the imagination of the masses: a hit bag, if not an It bag.

Hence the yoking of Ms. Delevingne's younger sister Cara, like Alexa Chung before her, to Mulberry, which though between creative directors has managed to churn up waves of enthusiasm for convertible backpacks, also schoolgirl-derived, some costing more than three thousand euros. (This week, the company also showed some ladylike purses for its older customers.)

That Cara strode beside Kate Moss to the front row at Burberry, carrying one of that brand's Mini Bee bags rather than the design upon which its competitor has pinned its hopes for the fourth quarter; and that she also swung an oval blue duffel down the runway at the Topshop Unique show, demonstrated how far afield a country once relied upon for sensible leather goods is rambling.