Handbags are now essential - containing our secrets and treasures on the inside, and a bit of our personality on the outside. Where would we be without them?
The handbag wasn't the product of a bunch of clever women trying to figure out where to put their stuff. No, the handbag is the product of centuries of evolutionary growth, formed from the fabric of time itself.
The earliest sightings of the handbag were dangling off the backs of girdles, and used to carry not only money, but also perfumes made from dried fruit. Both men and women carried purses in the 1400s, and, a bit like today, the wealth inside the bag was advertised on the outside by decoration, such as gold embroidery.
16th century – Subjects of 16th century paintings are often accompanied by money pouches as status symbols. A hundred years later women had started to wear their handbags under their skirts - a great idea!
17th century – Eventually, in 1670, someone came up with the bright idea of the pocket. This became a fashion, but little bags were still used to carry cash inside pockets.
18th century – The little bags disappeared for a while until after the French Revolution, when women began to dress for politics. It was all the rage to be seen dressed as a liberty symbol, and women froze their butts off in flimsy muslins and gauzes with ribbons tied under the bust. There was nowhere for a pocket in these dresses, so they carried their cab-fare in 'reticules', which were wee bags suspended on long strings attached to the 'empire-line' of the dress and dropped down inside it through a slit.
19th - 20th century – As skirts became fuller in the 19th century, pockets were used again for 100 years, until the 1900s when women bound their legs together in hobble skirts. Too tight for pockets, women started carrying large handbags on long chains - perhaps as self-defense, considering they couldn't move very fast.
Silhouettes in the 1920s would have been destroyed by pockets, and women in the war years carried their 'v-mail' from their sweethearts in their handbags wherever they went.
Handbags are now essential - containing our secrets and treasures on the inside, and a bit of our personality on the outside. Where would we be without them?
© Megan Grant