I get irritated by people who don't bother finding out simple things.
Wicker is usually willow switches. One can use also "cane of rattan stalks", reed and bamboo, split or not, or plastic, or even newspaper, but it's ALWAYS rather thick and stiff. You can't crochet wicker or make macramé out of it. You weave baskets.
This is a wicker handbag:
As you can see, it looks like a basket with some leather details. You just know it's going to be like a suitcase or a handbag made of plywood - with two hard sides and probably fabric lining that also makes sides, so that you can open the handbag while it hangs on your arm, without all that's in it falling out.
Wicker = hard
Now, THIS is not wicker.
This is straw. It looks more like something you'd put in your head than something you'd use as furniture.
It's soft, but not soft enough to do much more than simple knotting and bending. Straw bags are usually made of braided bands.
A material little softer is seagrass. It is usually spun into thin rope-like material, and then woven into bags.
These are not wicker either
The blue one is crocheted, the cream one is macrame. I think the blue one is made of raffia bast and the cream one of hemp or jute or sisal, or some other plant fibre one makes hessian (burlap) out of. Both of these materials are soft and don't splinter like straw would. You cannot crochet wicker or straw, nor make macrame knots out of them. So these are not wicker bags nor straw bags.
Raffia reminds a bit of plarn (plastic yarn), so you can use plarn to make anything made of raffia.
The green and white one is raffia and leather (by Balenciaga) and the strawcolored (sic) and purple is Jimmy Choo's straw bag. See how hard and shiny it is compared to the other, raffia bag.
Most of the summer bucket totes the shape of the green and white one are made of raffia or straw. If it looks like it's woven (and slightly rough), it's probably seagrass, braided strips, (and hard) it's probably made of straw, and if it looks like crocheted (and shiny), it's raffia.
This is NOT straw, even though they claim it is. You can't get such soft folds in straw. It is either seagrass or other spun plant material, but not straw. Straw doesn't have long fibres, so you cannot spin yarn (and not gold either) of straw.
This Kira "Straw" is not straw either. It's either seagrass or raffia, and considering the color and shine of the material, I'd say it's raffia. It is crocheted, so it cannot be wicker nor straw.
This Michael Kors Santorini "straw" tote is not straw either, even though it is braided bands. The material is too thick and soft to be straw. I would guess it's seagrass or cornhusks.
This is Straw Studio's Ingrid, and if you look at it closely, you'll see it's made of string, so it's not straw. I think it's made of seagrass.
This on the other hand IS straw. The spirals are hard, thin and shiny, like a straw hat.
This is not macrame, nor wicker or straw. It's braided and coiled raffia.
And here's a palmleaf tote. As you can see the soft, leatherlike material, similar to Kors' "straw" bag. It's coiled.
This raffia bag is coiled as well. It has that slightly plastic-y shine if you look at it closely...
These are not macrame. They are both crocheted. They are not wicker, straw or raffia, but quite ordinary cotton yarn. (or linen or hemp or ramie or some other ordinary spun plant fiber yarn.)
This is macrame. As you can see, it doesn't need to be "hippy craft".
Frankly, who am I to say that's hideous... there are people who like things like that. I don't. That's macramé in hemp.
This is macrame in jute.
This, again, is crochet, and horrible, I think. It too has its lovers...
This is called "crocheted bag". It's not. It's macrame.
Are you getting a hang of it? ;-)
P.S. This is Dalmatian.
The dog from Dalmatia.
You know, Dalmatian, American, Russian, Brazilian, Croatian, Indian, African, European... Dalmatian.
Where the heck did
you even get the idea of putting an -O- in there?
Damnation?
It's even less rocket science than seeing the difference of wicker and yarn, or crochet and macrame...
