What should you carry in a purse?
Conventionally a good purse would offer space for notes, coins, and cards, with ID slots and other useful features a bonus. These days a purse can still be useful for keeping a mixture of cash and cards, or even as a handbag replacement. Some purses and wallets offer space to keep your phone and offer a wrist strap, to make this an invaluable all-rounder for every time you leave the house.
What’s the best material for a women’s purse?
Conventionally women’s purses are made from leather, as this is a hard wearing and stylish fabric. Many purses and wallets are now made from Saffiano leather, a luxurious form of leather that is highly durable, scratch-resistant, and repels water and stains. Canvas is another popular option, though this can get dirty quickly.
As many of us move to a plant-based or sustainable lifestyle, there is an increasing range of vegan leather alternatives available, including plant-based leather and even cork.
What is the best women’s purse to buy?
We evaluated the most popular, useful, and stylish purses available to buy, and looked to the Mumsnet forums to see which purses and wallets Mumsnetters are raving about. Mumsnetters’ most recommended women’s purse is the Mulberry Medium Continental French Purse and it’s easy to see why. With its spacious interior and stylish design, this purse is a brilliant investment buy.
How we choose our recommendations
We’ve thoroughly researched the best women's wallets and purses you can buy this season including tried-and-tested experiences from a wide range of honest, trusted sources. Here’s how we narrowed it down to our top picks.
Mumsnet community
When it comes to stylish women's wallets and purses, Mumsnetters know a trusty carrier when they see (and use) one.
We first assessed all the recommendations from the Mumsnet community, getting feedback on the best women's purses and wallets they have personally used, reviewed and rated, including their favourite models, and must-have additional features such as RFID blocking. We also considered the reasons why Mumsnetters would avoid certain wallets and purses.
Expert opinions
We know that choosing the right women's purse or wallet takes a lot of thought and consideration, so we made sure our recommendations were well received within the bags and luggage industry, rated or recommended by travel experts and industry leaders.
Trusted consumer reviews
Finally, we scrutinised honest customer reviews on retailer sites such as Amazon and John Lewis to get wider consumer opinions on the products on our shortlist. Through this research, we were able to weigh up the best women's wallets and purses for a variety of needs including shopping and socialising, and gain a greater understanding of the pros and cons of each.
About the author
Alice Cruickshank is a content creator, with experience covering topics from parenting, business, fashion, and environmentalism. When she's not writing or making fun Instagram Reels, Alice works to inspire women to love their wardrobe and wear the colourful outfits of their dreams. You'll find her (and her vibrant wardrobe) at Styled by Alice and on Instagram.
Why you should trust us
Mumsnet has been helping parents make their lives easier since 2000 and, in those years, we’ve seen, tried and reviewed thousands of products in a wide variety of categories.
We work hard to provide honest and independent advice you can trust and we spend hours scouring the Mumsnet forums and online bestseller lists to find products that real parents rate.
Transparency is important to us and that's why we're always upfront about the research we do, and where we find our recommendations. We write about products that we feel offer the best value to most parents – the ones that our users would recommend to their own friends and family and strive to offer impartial advice across the board.