Speak Your Mind With These Totes We Found In Gariahat

We are over wearing slogan tees, and enough of letting people stare at out chests. The world has caught up to a new trend to wear your mood and mind, and we are following suit. Tote bags are the new global fashion "it" thing, and in Kolkata, the best place to get them is at Gariahat's pavement stalls. This is where you will find us browsing on weekends to add to our ever-growing collection of whimsical totes. 

It won't be a stretch to say Gariahat's market is a like a ocean that hides precious gems. You really need to dive deep into it to fish them out. We did the same when we went looking for totes in the stalls of Gariahat. If you take a tour of the entire stretch of the market you will lose count of the bag stalls you will come across, but there are only a few you need to check to find the best.

Walk down from Deshopriya Park towards Gariahat and you'll come across a bag stall just outside Punjabi Museum (near Hindustan Road) that has totes to to send you reeling in surprise and excitement. Made for companies abroad, these bags in canvas sport everything from punny quotes to logos of known brands as well as images of iconic places and monuments. We found a Waterstones tote that we bought up in multiple numbers for our books and notebooks. And we picked up a tote with colourful faces and a Spanish quote to make our stand clear about the #MeToo movement. Love reading pop culture and literary mags? We found a tote that was obviously meant for shipping out to one of our fave mags, The New Yorker!

The other stall to check is just two steps ahead (close to Kimbadanti), where we found the perfect tote for a bookworm. Sporting pineapples and the forward sign, use this to flaunt your nerdiness and your flair of French. Also, this tote comes with a convenient zip on top. For the one in love with Britain and all things English, check out the London Transport Museum totes with the iconic red double decker bus or the one that is covered with rows of British written in bold.

Next up walk towards the Bata store and check out the bags in the stall that stands close to it. You'll find the regular jute bags with flowers and colourful patterns mostly, but look close and you will spot bags with paintings of Klimt on them. We found Klimt's famous Mother and Child in one of the bags!

The icing on the cake, these totes start as low as just INR 30 and go up to INR 70! Now go all out and pick as many as you want to match your mood and the moment.

Check to see there are no flaws such as marks on the bags. You will have to hand-wash them in mild detergent or the colours may fade.

They keep adding new and fun prints to their collection almost every week. Look out for bags that are made for popular festivals like Sundance and Glastonbury.