My mother frowned when I came into the living room. ‘What’s that?’ she said. I looked down at my dress. ‘It’s my dress,’ I replied. ‘No, what’s that pink thing?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s my bag.’ ‘That’s not a bag,’ she insisted. I told her it was a bag and she told me it was a tote bag. ‘But this is my smart tote bag,’ I said, swivelling it around for her to see properly. ‘I washed it last night!’
I had gone to her house to get ready for a wedding – my first that summer – and, until the encounter in the living room, I hadn’t thought much about my bringing a tote bag. It was, as I’d said, my smartest one: plain and pink.
I ignored this parental intervention and left for the church. That summer, the smart tote bag accompanied me, happily, to seven more weddings.
For clarification: I am 29 years old and I have never owned and will never own a handbag. To carry stuff, I use a combination of systems: pockets, other people’s pockets, my bare hands and, of course, tote bags.
By definition, to me at least, handbags are different from tote bags because the latter are just functional. And, even with tote bags, I have certain rules. I would never buy a tote bag because I liked the look of it, rather I would accept a free tote bag or buy one in pinching circumstances.
Classic or con? The Chanel 2.55
Anyway, handbags. I hate them. If I were a more psychological person, I’d say this began at secondary school, where, on my first day, I – and all the other new students – arrived with a backpack. What we hadn’t realised was that, for some reason, at this school carrying a backpack was considered incredibly embarrassing and resulted in older students calling you a ‘turtle’ in the corridors. After a week, I shoved my backpack under my bed. For the next seven years, I carried my books in my arms.
And if I were a more virtuous person, I would say it’s the cost of it all. Currently, the most expensive handbag on the John Lewis website is £23,232. It’s a brown, second-hand Birkin bag by Hermès; the inside pockets are a little scuffed. Similarly, this month Sotheby’s announced it is auctioning a Jane Birkin-owned Birkin bag in December. It’s estimated to fetch £300,000. The high street own-brands aren’t cheap, either; Zara sells a shoulder bag for £349. This year, the global handbag market is worth £55.6 billion in revenue and that number is expected to grow by 6.39 per cent annually. I find this bonkers.
But, mostly, I hate handbags because I don’t suit them. On other people, they’re fine; on me, bags look silly – too much, too fussy, too wrought. It gets worse when a bag is smaller and therefore more decorative. In a choice between carrying a clutch and death, I would unhesitatingly choose death.
I’m not going mad. For confirmation, I tried on my friend’s red shoulder bag at the pub. It was small and suede. I stood up and spun around. ‘Wow,’ she said, genuinely startled, ‘it looks awful.’
An employee holds a £98,000 crocodile Hermes Birkin bag for the press to see during a private opening
It’s tricky to know when the handbag was invented. The oldest surviving model is brass and from 1300s Iraq. And by 1841, Harriet Cave – a luggage maker in London – became the first person to produce what we’d understand as luxury handbags.
To try to understand their appeal I speak to Sophie Gachet, a French fashion writer who has co-authored five books with Ines de la Fressange and, last year, published The Handbag Book: 400 Designer Bags That Changed Fashion. I ask how many she owns. ‘Oh, I couldn’t count.’ More than 50? ‘Yes!’ Where does she keep them all? ‘Everywhere. It’s a mess.’ Her first ‘proper’ handbag was a Louis Vuitton bucket bag, which she was given when she was 17. And her favourite is the Chanel 2.55 – a logo-free quilted purse with a gold chain. Gachet bought her first one 22 years ago, ‘and I still wear it and it still looks good’.
She’s confused about my theory that handbags look terrible on me (‘Really?!’) and asks what I do instead. Tote bags, I reply. ‘OK, that’s nice!’ Well, they’re mostly from the supermarket. ‘No, that’s nice. That’s a style!’
I say that sometimes I don’t bother with a bag at all and Gachet says: ‘You know, that proves your freedom.’ She remembers reporting on fashion weeks and companies arranging a driver to transport her from show to show. ‘You could leave your bag in the car and go to the show with just your phone. I thought, “Oh that is the ultimate freedom, if you don’t have to carry a bag.” So, it must look like you have a driver all the time!’
I don’t, sadly, but I like the idea: that, actually, having no handbag is the real luxury. And that evening, when I leave the office, I forgo my tote and bung my stuff in my pockets. Outside, I walk past shops selling handbags in the windows and think about how I will never own any of them.
Freedom!
