Given the opportunity to buy a limited edition designer bag, even a canvas one, some New York women will do almost anything.

Yesterday, those seeking totes by the British designer Anya Hindmarch showed up at her two Manhattan store locations — on East 60th Street and on Greene Street — at 5 a.m. Others ducked out of work, stood in line for hours, or tried to bribe sales associates to jump the line or buy more than the two-bag-a-customer limit.

“This is such a New York City thing to do, to wait in line for a bag,” one shopper, Stacie Owen, said as she stood patiently on East 60th Street yesterday.

The totes, with the words “I’m Not A Plastic Bag,” cost $15 and are billed as environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic shopping bags. The bags were first sold in April in Britain, where they sold out in two hours.

Sales reached a similar frenzy yesterday at Ms. Hindmarch’s East 60th Street store, where the line of shoppers extended from Madison to Park Avenues. The store manager, Mary Apicella, kept the shop orderly by allowing three customers inside at a time. She said some tried to cut the line, offering her sob stories of why they needed to be admitted early or quickly. Ms. Apicella said the funniest were the women who missed the message on the bag, and asked for plastic bags to carry their totes home in. “They just want an Anya Hindmarch bag for $15,” she said.

One woman standing in line around midday, who declined to give her name because she was supposed to be at work, said her aunt had called the previous night from London and begged her to buy a bag. Another customer, Sarah Limbu, said her boss at a department store sent her to the sale on her behalf.

“I wouldn’t have come if she didn’t ask me,” Ms. Limbu, 24, said. After waiting for two hours, Ms. Limbu walked out of the store with two bags — including one for herself. “You want one” after waiting so long, she said.

Alas, dozens of shoppers were left empty-handed at around 3:30 p.m., when a sales associate emerged to announce the bags had been sold out. He tried to assuage the disappointed women by telling them the bags would be widely distributed at Whole Foods stores starting July 18.

That information did not comfort 23-year-old Elonora German.

“It won’t be as important then because everyone will have it,” she said.