Evening Purse

An evening purse is the luxurious sister of all other purses. Although there is no official style that is called an evening purse, the term refers to high quality, fashionable and trendy purses that match the wearer's outfit and look glamorous at dinners and evening events.
     Below: Evening purse examples, in some of their limitless shapes, sizes and styles. The bottom line is fashion and elegance.

A fine clutch purse or coin purse, or handbag or any type of purse, can be classified as an evening purse if it is stylish and classy and matches the occasion well. If you walk around the streets and notice purses, and then walk around an event such as a fine dinner, awards show, live theater, or some other such elegant happening, you will immediately recognize the difference in the quality and styles of purses.

All-day purses are meant to be handy and usable, and have some fashion to them. An evening purse is all ABOUT the fashion, and the utility of the evening purse is secondary. Like all purses it will do a good job of organizing and carrying things, but it's the outside looks that are most important.

Most evening purses are of a modest size; smaller coin purses are simply too small and become lost and invisible, not a quality you want in a fashion statement; larger purses and handbags can look dumpy, and if flashy they can far overpower whatever the wearer has on. An evening purse should perfectly complement the wearer's outfit. A simple outfit with simple prints and colors can easily stand either a similar simple, elegant evening purse, but also a flashy complex purse works, to complement the simple outfit with some flashy style. But if you're wearing a flashy outfit, choosing the evening purse to match is a little more difficult. A flashy purse can either fit in well, or be the wrong style and really fight with the outfit and not fit well at all.

Of course, rules are made to be broken, so why not experiment, right?