Blending uptown artistry with downtown chic, fitting function to fashion, crafting strong leathers to curvy lines, Gida Bavari handbags are for women who never compromise brains for beauty, strength for femininity, or their personal style for passing trends.

Made of bold Italian leather and hardware, each Gida Bavari handbag is crafted in New York City and smartly tailored to the lifestyle of a metro girl-on-the-go. Fall 2005’s collection is highlighted with larger bags made to move from business meetings to martini bars — besides being packed with pockets for cell phones, PDAs, or MP3 players, slots for pens, and a key ring, the totes make space for an optional matching wristlet. An easy evening bag on the go, the same crackled leather and chrome of the larger totes fashion the little clutches.

Bridging office hours to cocktail parties, and work weeks to weekends, Gida Bavari’s sleek chic doesn’t slow a beat, just like the women the bags are built for. “Manhattan women inspire me every day,” says designer Gida Batista. “Their busy lifestyles and strong sense of style always inspire me to create something that will compliment them.”

Batista knows her Manhattanite muse well — born and raised in New York, she’s the exact confident, creative-professional she’s inspired by. Gida Bavari bags’ roots lie on the other coast, though, during Batista’s seven years in San Francisco’s radio and television industry. Between working alongside talents Johnny Depp, Bill Murry, and Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows, and shooting an independent music video for one of her own songs, Batista found herself sketching piles of handbag designs.

Creating her own collection of handbags proved too much to resist, and Batista returned to New York City in 2003 and shifted swiftly from entertainment and music into fashion. After enrolling at FIT and studying sourcing and production, in spring 2005 she debuted Gida Bavari’s first collection.

Perhaps Batista’s creative leap between music and fashion was quickly successful because she didn’t see a long distance between the two. “Fashion, like music, is so expressive. Both afford us the ability to be who we want to be and to make our individual statement, whatever that may be,” says Batista. “We can be vulnerable, playful, strong, sexy, powerful, depending on whichever mood strikes us on any given day.”

“I chose to design handbags in particular because of the obvious reason — they’re very personal to women and can really help women show off their personality,” continues Batista. “You pour your life into handbags. A great handbag carries you everywhere, much like you carry it.” And that Gida Bavari bags carry a woman everywhere expands beyond just toting her essentials from power lunches to dinner dates — Gida Bavari carries a woman from last year’s spring wardrobe to next season’s runway chic.

“My designs are classic, with elements of trend,” says Batista. “I don’t focus on solely trend because I believe that a well-designed handbag should withstand the test of time. I love design elements and details, so I prefer to keep the trends in the details and in the color choices, but not to the extent that dates the bag for seasons to come.”

Batista’s dedication to quality design over quick fads, to setting trends instead of running after them is obvious in Gida Bavari’s original spring 2005 collection. Composed of crackled Italian leather and statement hardware, the handbags are still more than fresh-like Gida Bavari’s present and future, past seasons’ bags are still the perfect accessory for a smart, take-all girl about town.

“The Gida Bavari brand stands for lifestyle,” sums up Batista. “It’s a brand that goes beyond fashion. Its functionality proves to be a girl’s best friend. It knows that you’re sexy, smart, funny, powerful, and feminine,” Gida Bavari knows that a woman never wants or warrants any less.

I drown desire to sleep in espresso, working, writing all night to have my laptop crash. I’m squashed between cattle on the express train as it apologizes for being perpetually delayed and I miss a meeting. I finally land home, finding my Matilda dead (she was an African violet; my favorite pet - besides my snakeskin clutch - as my building doesn’t allow furry things besides coats).

Three little pricks and plus a ton of pressure, and my little bubble of a world has burst. Give me prayers, send me organic chocolates, just give me –

– A hug.

Alas, while the arms of my beloved aren’t available — or, I’m single, whatever — I’ll sub with two boys’ band of ribbon wrapped tight around my waist. Alex & Lorenzo will embrace me, complement my outfits, and accompany me from breezy brunches in jeans to cinched-waist black-dress affairs.

And handmade and oft custom-designed, it’s unlikely I’ll see my Alex & Lorenzo hugging any other girl. We’ve got a true love affair, thanks to designer Kristen. “I spend lots of time searching for my fabrics so that they can be one-of-a-kind,” says Kristen. “I sew each and every belt with love and care and get such satisfaction from each piece.”

As do I. In fact, I think I’ll wipe my eyes –

– And even put away the chocolates.

Daily strolling in stilettos, usually skirting pants in favor of dresses, and beginning everyday putting on my face, sometimes I long for when the New Look was new, to walk out without a persimmon pout was bold, and to leave the house with a bare head left you a bit naked.

And then my brain wrinkles, nose in the air at the idea of housewifing, being bound by girdles, and handling the world with kid gloves.

Still, I wouldn’t mind men tipping hats when we greet on the street — so long as I could occasionally wear the slacks, too.

Happily, Hat Addicition has rescued me — at least momentarily — from my Damsel-in-Postfeminism-Distress-dom, offering its wearable and artful solution of old-greets-new fashion. Designer Reiko Tomita’s Japanese heritage is shaken with Brooklyn-street style, and blended smoothly through her traditional millinery training.

Smartly whimsical, it doesn’t take Brain Surgery to figure out the intelligence behind the hat of that same name: a subtly Lucy Ball-looking cap is made of pink velveteen arranged to look like gray matter.

Cerebral cortex caps make you nervous? “I do a lot of custom-made hats,” says Reiko. “I love finding the right styles and size for each customer. I have customers from babies to 80-year-olds, men to drag queens. Many of my customers are ‘hat people’ who are very confident with their style, but I also have plenty of clients that aren’t so comfortable wearing hats. I love to find the right one for them.”

Sounds like a perfect fit.

My heart aches for simpler, purer times: I remember playing in the kitchen when I was eight, making lattes, minimalist menages of milk mingling with espresso. Now, I find myself paying six bucks for eight-ounces of a half-caf-double-shot-extra-foam-vanilla-soy cappuccino. I remember costuming myself as a flapper one Halloween, teetering in my mom’s pumps and quickly ruining her heels. Now I run to the shoe repairman every other week, taking off a couple of insensible platforms for five seconds so I’ll be able to jog another twenty blocks without demolishing my beloveds’ soles. I remember –

– That I’ve got about a billion other things to do today besides reminisce. And who am I kidding? Like any transplant Manhattanite isn’t crazy in love with being crazy-busy. But one glance at the clean, organic lines of J.Mendicino’s functional sculpture, at the pure, white shapes, and I fondly remember naps in some postmodern cottage, enjoying easy sleep. I remember fresh sunshine and the bluest air, I remember –

– That I grew up in smoggy LA. There’s something subtly seductive about the Zen-like simplicity of J. Mendicino; maybe it has to do with “the white glaze on simple forms, which gives me a strong sense of focus,” says designer Joanna Mendicino, “which has really helped me in developing my line over the past few years.”

And J. Mendicino’s essence is what helps me when I need an escape from my Manhattan marathon of meetings and soy mochaccinos — when I remember I need to just forget for a couple of moments.

I’ve been a terribly boorish new New Yorker, especially considering I practically live on Museum Row. I’ve but strolled by the Guggenheim, glanced at the Gates, and only visited the Met to take an outta-town friend to that Wild fashion exhibit.

And I cake on eyeliner, never tan, and have dark bed head hair — I’m far too faux boho to not to be forever cooing in fine arts galleries.

It’s unforgivable, really.

So to amend for my sin, I’ve taken to worshipping B-Tang’s wearable sculpture. Handcrafted with designer Beverly Tang’s art world pedigree, the jewelry line parallels her past do-not-touch museum sculptures of light. Both her fine art and costume art play with organic shapes, celebrating ambiguous figures intent on gaining viewers’ interaction. Only with B-Tang’s rings and things, instead of wrapping conversations of “Why”s around the pieces, you can sticky your paws all over them, and wind a necklace around your wrist, or wear a ring a few different ways.

“There’s more than one path of life, more than one way of doing anything,” says Beverly. “So why not more than one way of wearing jewelry?”

Fittingly, body decor like B-Tang’s extra-wide copper cuff pairs just as well with a cocktail dress for MoMA shindigs, as it does, well, with a pair of jeans and ballet flats…

And sinfully dirty hair.

Let’s family, friends, and short — and tall — acquaintances be unsurprised: I’ve never been given to fantasizing about my wedding — the people, the place, the gown.

More like the county judge, the courthouse, my jeans.

But then my eyes met Indigo Handloom hand-woven wraps, and — with one look at the bridal collection — my thoughts went like-a-virgin white: embossed invites, a chipper chapel, a tiered gown.

Or more like Flash-y evites, the Getty Museum, an unbridal dress.

I do, I do, Indigo Handloom!

But while I recount love at first sight, the first fires behind designer Smita Paul’s relationship with Indigo Handloom were more devastating than devastatingly romantic — in fact, the line sprung from a messy break-up.

Smita, working as a journalist at the time, jet-set to Africa to cover a story, and returned to her ransacked home. “Everything was gone, including three computers, camera equipment, everything,” says Smita. “I didn’t care about any of the ’stuff.’ I was mostly horrified that my computer, where I’d stored all my writing, was gone.” Smita moved back to New York to restart her career, armed with her Palm Pilot. And then “fate entered the picture again,” says Smita. “I was riding my bike over Brooklyn Bridge with the Palm in my backpack, and out of nowhere a giant rain cloud cracked open and dumped a river on my head.” Smita cried a little, and recovered: she still had a celly full of 100+ numbers.

Until Smita loaned it to her mom… “And she left it on a park bench.”

Hmm.

“So at this point, I was really wondering if the universe was trying to tell me something. In fact, I felt like it was yelling in my ear. I resisted the idea that it was a ’sign’ and still tried to get going,” which led to Smita writing about India’s silk industry, quickly inspiring her fine line of soiree saris.

“Beautiful textiles have always been a part of my life,” says Smita. “I always knew that one day, I’d take a break from journalism and pursue this other side of me.”

“Of course, that final break was somewhat dramatic.”

Somewhat? More like fantastically.

metrounisexual™ (met’ro’yoo’ni-sek’shoo-el): n., adj. 1. a phrase coined and trademarked in hopes that it would be picked up by fashion bibles so that its royalties may pay for someone’s iced soy latte and traffic ticket habits. 2. an excuse to write out a faux dictionary definition as an opening hook in attempt to snare readers. 3. something or someone that is fashionably image-conscious in a gender-ambiguous way, ie. “Initium Eyewear’s line of sun glasses, with classic, fashion-iconic shapes, are the perfect selection for a Los Angeleno metrounisexual™ on a sunny SoCal day.”

There are the highway patrolman “Cocktails” lenses sported by Avril Lavigne, then there are the Jackie O, “LAX” femme frames donned by skateboard demigod Tony Alva, then there are the feelings that Initium Eyewear’s debut and spring collection toys with gender-bending and sex-negligent aesthetics.

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