Shopping From Television: Mills Canvas Bags

Since I've been sick, I've been relishing my access to A.M. talk television. My favorite program--as a kind of legacy selection from earlier incarnations--is the Martha Stewart show or simply MARTHA. I'm not too fond of the audience applause factor or the set design kitchen from which Martha emerges at the beginning of each show. However, I do love Martha Stewart's restlessly perfectionist sensibility and sleuth hound approach to food and objects. Over the last few weeks, Martha has been running a "secret sources" segment where she reveals the source for some hard (for the rest of us?) to find Martha approved artifact. Recent examples include ribbon candy, pottery, pet jackets and a Japanese department store in Manhattan. For the most part, I've been indifferent to her finds (but imaged my own guest star selections and how I might revive the fortunes of various struggling, defunct or near obsolete brands). However, last week, Martha Stewart stole a page from Archival Clothing by featuring a brand of canvas boat tote which I swore had not been in production for ages: Mills brand canvas bags. We've owned a green Mills tote for many years and I was certain that it was dead brand (the label alone looks like something sewn on the dockyards in the early nineteen thirties).