Canvas is the least precious option. Toteme's organic cotton canvas tote and the Tory Burch Perry take a beating, while Clare V's Volie and the Reiss striped Sacha add a bit more shape. Lemaire's quilted Soft Game is the one that looks intentional rather than purely practical.

The Volie tote from Clare V. mixes canvas with leather at the handles, which is where a bag wears out first. The Tory Burch Perry is the plainer canvas tote and holds more.

The organic cotton canvas tote is the structured one and stands up on its own. The Beach tote is looser and wider, built to be thrown in a car rather than carried to a desk.

The Lemaire Soft Game is quilted, so it has padding for anything fragile inside. The Stella McCartney tote reverses, which effectively gives you two bags.

Raffia and woven leather stretch the season past summer. The Loewe Paula's Ibiza punch hole tote and Hunting Season's raffia shopper still work under a coat, and St. Agni's woven leather tote takes the texture into something that will not fray. Veronica Beard's wicker basket is the most literal reading.

The Hunting Season Shopper is the more structured raffia bag, with leather taking the strain at the handles. The Lie Studio Bianca is softer and slouches as it fills.

The St Agni woven leather tote carries into autumn in a way raffia cannot. The Anya Hindmarch Bow keeps raffia but adds a leather bow, which lifts it for evening.

The Toteme T lock clutch is the evening end of this material. The Loewe Paula's Ibiza Punch Hole tote is small enough for a phone, a book and not much else.

Plain leather is the long term buy. Savette's Symmetry, the Demellier New York midi and Lie Studio's Grace are shapes that soften with use, while Serapian and Metier keep the texture flat. The Christian Louboutin spiked Cabata is the only one here with anything on it.

The Lie Studio Grace is the clean, unbranded tote that goes everywhere. The Louboutin Cabata mini adds spikes, so it is a bag people notice rather than one they forget.

The Savette Symmetry holds a hard rectangle, which suits a laptop. The Serapian Secret has a textured finish that hides the marks a daily bag picks up.

The Metier Chameleon 41 is the largest here and built for travel. The Balenciaga Fan curves at the base, so it reads as a shape rather than a container.

If you take one thing away, it is to match the material to how often the bag ends up on the floor. Canvas takes it and washes. Raffia does not, and a season of train floors will show. Leather sits in between and looks better for the wear, which is why it costs more and lasts longer. Think about whether the bag needs to stand up on its own, because the unstructured totes here collapse the moment you set them down and that is genuinely annoying with a laptop inside. The woven group is the most seasonal and the most fun, so buy it knowing it is a six month bag. The leather totes will still be working in three years, which is a different kind of purchase.