Standing outside Selfridges recently, I had something of an epiphany.

There I was ogling the display of Louis Vuitton monogrammed handbags across four giant windows when an image of icons in a Greek Orthodox church popped into my head.

Yes, there was definitely something quasi-religious about the way these fashionable accessories were arranged: the way they were framed like paintings, just two in each window, by huge neon-lit mirrors.

It also occurred to me that this was probably exactly the response, though perhaps at a more subliminal level, for which the clever window dresser had hoped.

Alma bag by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, we venerate you. Finely crafted piece of plastic-coated canvas at £1,180 a pop, we worship you. Handbags as the new religion. Not such a bad way to sell a product.

I was reminded, too, of the splendid Grayson Perry tapestry that explores our adoration of brands and which has just gone on display at the Victoria Miro gallery in London.

At the centrepiece of this witty, provocative work of art, by the Turner Prize-winning potter, is a woven Madonna with a large teardrop on her face, clutching something as you might hold a baby.

On closer inspection, you realise that what is being cradled in this Madonna’s arms is not baby Jesus, but a quilted Chanel handbag.

There were more revelations waiting for me inside Selfridges. I wandered through the ground-floor department, gasping more at the price tags than the divinity of the bags.

In the Jimmy Choo corner, I read about Project Pep, which is supporting, in connection with the Elton John Aids Foundation, a centre in South Africa for victims of abuse.

Some 25 per cent of the net profits of the Pep bag, £550 (which I was reprimanded by the sales assistant for referring to as a washbag when it was, in fact, a clutch) will help provide preventative HIV medication.

I was trying to work out whether you would be more inclined to buy an expensive washbag, I mean clutch, if it was attached to a good cause, when I was distracted by a huge-girthed young Muslim woman wearing a black hijab teamed with scruffy grey tracksuit bottoms and trainers, stroking a black ruffled leather Jimmy Choo bag as if it was a much-loved cat.

Bag lady: Victoria Beckham shows off one of her Hermes Birkins

‘How much?’ she asked the assistant. ‘£950,’ came the reply.

‘Well, you’re cheaper than Harrods,’ said the young woman. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I said to her spontaneously. And I meant it. But I was also confused by the discrepancy between this young woman’s appearance and the purchase of this incredibly expensive bag.

Slowly, though, it began to make sense. A demure Muslim girl might not be able to show off herself in flesh-revealing clothes, but there’s nothing disrespectful to her religion about a designer bag.

And a fat girl, Muslim or not, might never be able to fit into a designer label dress, but when it comes to handbags, size doesn’t matter.

Bags don’t discriminate against you for not being a size 8. Bags don’t demand you to strip off in the changing room and reveal your cellulite.