As my tenure as Editor-in-Chief draws to a close, I’ve pondered on what, if any, indelible mark I can leave upon this publication: Words of wisdom? Soppy, reflective prose? Rambles from my morning Scores strolls?
Fear not. I wouldn’t bore you with superfluities. Instead, I come bearing my most comprehensive St Andrews analysis: a scrupulous assessment of the bags worn most in St Andrews cafes. Or, in short, my notes on St Andrews totes.
Palompos:
Starting with my favorite, Palompos is reliable, underrated, and consistent. The queue is rarely long, the service pleasingly efficient, and the price particularly satisfying in a town where £5 lattes are the norm.
The average student in Palompos is chic but unassuming – cool in an understated way, much like the shop itself.
Accordingly, I’ve found the most frequent ‘totes’ adorning this small Italian cafe to be sleek and muted Kate Spade and Coach bags and the occasional sophisticated yet unbranded brown leather tote—the one you envy but can never replicate because the wearer bought it thrifting in Greece or some other annoyingly cool place. Sigh.
In all, the totes of Palompos marry the tastefully unadorned with the effortlessly modish.
Spoiled Life:
Where to begin with Spoiled? The store itself frequently transforms into a St Andrews fashion show, students dressed to the nines to grab a quick pre-lecture matcha. It is the most voguish establishment in town, and the bags populating its earthy-chic interiors do not disappoint.
In Spoiled, you’re sure to encounter a sea of sumptuous designer totes: from color-popping Goyards to the more understated likes of Marc Jacobs. You’ll likely feel a flash of envy upon arrival.
Like the enticing storefront and cafe, the bags of Spoiled Life are unceasingly enchanting.
Taste:
Taste is a frustrating paradox, simultaneously un- and uber-pretentious in its spartan shop. Though it gives the feel of down-to-earth-ness, do not let this false sense of comfort lull you.
Taste is frequently bustling with some of the university’s most stylish students, and their bags make for an interesting extension.
Gone are known labels. Most Taste frequenters adorn actual totes – not structured designer masterpieces, but the flimsy ones you get from a bookshop. The power in these totes is the way they carry them – with both authority and nonchalance. The tote and its plainness merely bolster the comparative coolness of the wearer. The bags are neither alluring nor functional, just simply there.
Pret:
Ah Pret. I mourn the days when the Pret subscription provided me five daily coffees, keeping me well caffeinated and peppy. My second-year mornings were once spent hunched in the corner table, pouring out IR essays, drunk off my iced oat vanilla latte.
Despite its undeniable drop in customers following the change to its subscription, Pret is still denoted by its comforting simplicity. It is basic, but always good.
The bags on display follow suit. Most popular is the classic Longchamp, the stereotypical 20-something-year-old girl tote, likely in the color navy or black. Sorry if you feel called out.
Nonetheless, both the shop and its corresponding bags are sensical and predictable in a reassuring fashion.
Kinnettles Coffee Garden:
This enticing secret garden-esque cafe is less shop and more slightly forested common. Its cafe truck is quaint and unassuming, as are the totes of its outdoorsy wearers.
However, where Taste’s totes harbor a supercilious air, the totes of Kinnettles feel more authentic – like the nature its frequenters immerse themselves in. I’ve even noticed a woven basket or two occupying its confines: excellent form and very Jane Birkin-esque.
Starbucks:
Starbucks is tricky to categorize. Its visitors occupy a wide range of social stereotypes, from tourists, to locals, to Stem boys, and HC girls. Its hodgepodge character inhibits it from categorical neatness. Thus, I must, unfortunately, condemn it to the world’s most nondescript tote: the non-tote, or, in other words, the backpack. Yikes.
No hate to backpacks. As an unassuming fresher I hiked up the four floors of the arts building for my first ever tutorial, boastfully adorning a new, teal, industrial North Face backpack. Let’s just say it was a short-lived phase.
But yes, Starbucks, in its liminality, must bare this barren title. Apologies.
Five Acres:
Five Acres is somewhat of a new addition to the St Andrews’s cafe scene, and is the one on this list I’m least familiar with. This is no fault of the establishment, but of my burning allegiance to Combinicafe – host of the best matcha and latte in town. Its closing was a harrowing tragedy.
This last semester, I’ve braved its granola-girl interior. How bad could it be? Truth be told, it’s fairly nice. It’ll never replace Combini cafe, but I digress.
It’s totes, like the cafe, are subject to an interesting phenomenon, which I termed the pseudo-earthy-crunchy. Whilst earthy-crunchy in presentation, this nature-valley-bar feel is undercut by its subtle glamor.
Let me explain. While the store appears to be a minimalist cafe with scraps of organic groceries and vegan pastries, this is faulty. It functions as a somewhat farm shop, and a great one at that. In this same manner of deception, the totes of Five Acres appear generic, but on closer inspection, intimate the wearer’s stylistic superiority: totes from Reformation, Peachyden, Damson Madder, Alo, etc., are common accoutrements for many of its frequenters, waiting patiently in a long queue for a maple latte. And all the power to them.
Conclusion:
Whilst not as robust as I’d wish, I hope this analysis was a) sufficiently entertaining and b) somewhat revelatory. As a decrepit fourth year, I (presumably) have some authority to make these claims.
Much love,
Rhiannon (your OLD EIC)