The best budget personalisation services

Not every day a high-street bag gets the accolade Arm Candy of Fashion Month, but Whistles's Delilah clutch won the bag-off by a whisker. It comes in a knock-out salmon-pink colour, is the perfect size (not too small that it fits jack-all, but not too big so that it's cumbersome), but the real deal-sealer is you can personalise it with your initials (trying to work out the names of the fashion editors based on their stamped bags was a diverting pastime while waiting for the shows to start), and on the cheap. Personalisation isn't new, of course - Prada does lettered shoppers, Burberry has a bespoke trench coat service, and bag designer Anya Hindmarch has been offering it for years - but, as those labels suggest, tend to be pricey. So hooray for Whistles for bringing monogramming to the masses. Now that we've got a taste for it, we think everything looks better with a personal stamp - which is why we've hunted high and low for the chicest personalisation services which don't cost silly money.

READ: Whistles bring their monogrammed clutch bags to the masses

CAMBRIDGE SATCHEL COMPANY
The item: Satchels, of course. Cambridge Satchel Company's Harry Potter-inspired school bags for grown-ups are now considered cult classics, and the company has collaborated with top designer brands including Comme des Garçons.

The service: CSC offers an embossing service on all its bags, bar the patents - there are five styles, and 20 colours. Embossing can be done in blind (no colour), black, silver and gold; Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men , gave his cast bags with the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce logo, the name of the ad agency in the series, as a thank-you at the season five wrap party. It costs £5 per letter, and you can have as many as you want. Rather handily, the price is capped at £20. Satchels start at around £94.

READ: Cambridge Satchel Company gets the Mad Men seal of approval

The wait: 10 minutes in store, or you can add it as an extra if you're buying online without increasing the delivery time. cambridgesatchel.co.uk

POPLIN
The item: Pyjamas. Poplin was founded by former fashion writer Lucy Archibald, whose clean-cut cotton pyjamas are inspired by men's sleepwear.

The service: Monogramming. Select your colour thread (we're eyeballing the cool neon yellow and pink) and they'll hand-stitch it onto the pocket for you. It costs £15 per letter. Nightshirts start at £85. Email bespoke@poplin.co.uk.

The wait: Up to seven days. poplin.co.uk

OLIVER SWEENEY
The item: Slick shoes from this relatively young upstart (the company was founded in 1989) to the pantheon of great British shoemakers. They do both men's and women's.

READ: Mencyclopaedia: Oliver Sweeney

The service: Shoe tattooing. You can have your initials inked on any part of the shoe, or a fancier design of your own imagining - they use a real tattoo gun and ink. If you're buying a new pair, you can get it done for free (shoes start from £100). Otherwise, it'll cost £25 for initials, and from £45 up to £100 for designs to jazz up your old Sweeneys.

The wait: Ten days online, and, depending on the complexity of the design, usually on the day in stores. There is a shoe tattoo pop-up in Selfridges in London until March 17. oliversweeney.com

ASPINAL
The item: Leather goods, from card cases to diaries and bags from this quintessentially English luxury label.

The service: Initialling (maximum four initials, from £15) or personal messages (up to 20 characters, from £25). You can have gold or silver foil stamping, or blind embossing, although these only work on smooth leather. Notebooks start from £10.50, card cases from £25 and bags from £175.

The wait: Three to five days in store or online. aspinaloflondon.com

WHISTLES
The item: The slouchily cool Delilah clutch, in hot pink or black. The bag comes in two sizes.

The service: Choose from two fonts and from the perky hues of blue, lavender or lime for your monogrammed initials. The bag costs £45 on its own; with monogramming, it's £95.

The wait: Two weeks, although it's only available at Whistles's Dover Street store in London. whistles.co.uk

Via: The best budget personalisation services