What's in Your Bag?

Vintage needlepoint purse

I love handbags. Always have. The first one I owned was given to me when I was only five or six. The purse was white, envelope style with a shoulder strap. Across the front flap was one long word in red:

G I V E N C H Y.  I had no idea of the significance of this word, much less how to pronounce it.

After just a few weeks of use, the front had a prominent finger-grease stain. This is not surprising, as I was just a kiddo who played outdoors and forgot to wash my hands after eating chocolate. This dark smudge embarrassed me, but I kept the bag because I loved its simple style and, more importantly, it made me feel like a grown-up.

It is with this pocketbook that my obsession began. Not just with bags in general, but other women’s bags. I desperately wanted to rummage through the handbags of other women. I didn’t want to steal anything, but instead, I wanted to know specifically what other women carried. I wanted to smell the lipstick, jangle the keys, powder my nose.

Obviously, my desire to search handbags was an extension of my desire to be a “grownup.” The pocketbook was an artifact. If I could just examine the contents of various ones, surely I would find some answers to my yet to be vocalized questions. What does it mean to be a woman? Why did women carry pocketbooks? What was in them? Did all women have the same things in their bags? Why didn’t men carry them?

According to Wikipedia, both men and women did carry bags until the late 1700s. Pocketbook, purse, and handbag are more or less synonymous now, but each has their own etymology. The term pocketbook dates back to the 1600s, when women’s skirts had large pockets sewn into them that could hold a variety of items, such as sewing notions or books (Healey). Purse originally referred to a small bag, specifically for holding coins. Evolving from the purse was the handbag, which was a larger version of the purse. Handbags initially referred to men’s handheld luggage until the 1900s, when the term began to refer solely to an accessory for women (Wikipedia).

When it comes to purses, there’s the obvious symbolism between the purse and the womb. The artist Suzanna Scott demonstrates this through her ongoing project that utilizes vintage coin purses, opening them up and pulling out the lining, mirroring female genitalia. It seems appropriate, then, that the handbag evolved to be both a necessity and an accessory for women. It’s easy to fall into the binary when it comes to this discussion, and I want to acknowledge that the word choice is for simplification. Our society is slowly moving forward in acknowledging and respecting gender identity and expression and anyone may choose to carry a purse. 

I’ve heard the argument that women are forced to carry a pocketbook due to the fact that most clothing designed for them has either no pockets or only small decorative ones. There is some legitimacy to that argument, but it’s short sighted. I’ve seen an increase in usable pockets in my clothing options, but in no way do these pockets serve my needs for what I use on a daily basis.

For example, I carry not one, but two bags to work. One is my handbag, and the other is a tote with my journal, planner, umbrella, and water bottle. Envious of my son and husband, I’ve longed to walk out the front door with nothing but my keys. I therefore tried the next best thing: the one-bag experiment. I purchased a large tote and filled it with the contents of my handbag AND the planner, calendar, water bottle, along with a wristlet. The wristlet was to serve as a wallet/phone holder for a trip into a restaurant or a store. Eureka! I had an answer... until the shoulder and back pain set in.

I’ve seen a number of colleagues with multiple bags. One co-worker carried a large pocketbook while steering around a roller bag that resembled a case for sales materials. I never saw her remove anything from the rolling case, yet she determinedly rolled it from place to place, heaving it into her car. On the flip side, I had a colleague who never carried any type of bag. Her cell phone case served as her wallet. I did notice, though, that she was often losing her keys and therefore locked out of her car or office. The reason she probably did not simply put her key chain into the pants that she exclusively wore is most likely the same reason I don’t fully utilize my own pockets. It’s bulky. It’s uncomfortable. Try shoving a keychain with a fob, house keys, and multiple office keys into a pair of fitted pants. They don’t fit. They jab. Sitting down in pants with a mass of metal keys is simply not an option.  

Mixed media cigar box handbag that I made

And there’s the rub. I, and many others, need a purse to carry the essentials because pockets alone do not suffice. The handbag options are endless, and create a robust industry. Fortune Business Insights states that the market for handbags in 2025 is $60.29 billion and projected to keep growing. After all, one handbag does not work for every event. Bags serve different purposes, and a society built on capitalism is going to exploit this as much as possible.

I won’t list the variety of styles of handbags or the many designers, but I will say that the type of bag a woman needs varies. There’s no one-size-fits all that lasts an entire lifetime. Through my informal interviews, I can count on one hand the number of women who just use the same bag until it breaks or looks unsightly. Another small number only change their bag out once a year, marking a seasonal change. By far, the majority own more than one bag, and what they choose to use on a daily basis is nicknamed the “bag of the day” or BOTD. 

Mothers of infants and/or young children not only choose a handbag, but also a diaper bag, sometimes morphing the two together to cut down on all that they carry. Once a family member realizes that mom has a bag, the requests come flowing in: can you hold my book? My sunglasses? Hey, honey, can I put my wallet in your purse? Not only is there the emotional work of being a mother/spouse, but there’s also the physical work that comes to carrying things for others. One young mother recently told me that she purposely switched to a very small purse, just roomy enough for the basics. She is “training” her husband and growing children not to depend on her to carry their stuff. 

Of course, it goes without saying that purses signify wealth, not just taste or fashion. Carrying a Givenchy or Birkin bag means one has a large disposable income (or credit card debt) and wants to impress others, make a statement, or fit into a certain social circle. I do not own a top-end designer handbag, but I do have several bags, each serving a different purpose.  

Upcycled vintage handbag

For years I’ve admired and collected vintage purses. I especially like the handbags of the 1950s and 1960s. The kiss lock is a common style – the triangular shaped bag (wider at the bottom) with a interior pocket for a small comb and mirror, and a top lock that clasps together (hence the “kiss”) that makes a most satisfying sound when closing. As much as I wanted to go retro and carry these on a regular basis, they were made in the day when women did not have cell phones, had few keys, and only had a credit card if they had a husband who agreed to sign for it. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I cannot fit my essentials into one of these vintage purses. Instead, I’ve used them for artistic purposes as opposed to storing them. Since they are old, many have marks or discoloration, allowing me to be guilt-free when altering them. Of the two featured here, one has brooches pinned to it, showcasing common jewelry of the same time period, and the other has a collage from 1950s cookbooks and advertisements. I have hung them on my bedroom walls so that I can continue to enjoy them.

As for finding the answer of what it means to be a woman, the options are just as varied as the many types of handbags that exist. There’s no one answer to that question, and I find myself living into it daily, with a handbag to match!

Vintage handbag, collage