I’m a fashion editor, so it won’t surprise you that I care about handbags more than others. Most times, you will find mine to be a rather messy handbag. I could reel off the design specs of a Gucci Jackie bag or a Loewe Puzzle, and have already memorised the new styles en route for spring/summer 2024. I am very specific about how my handbags complete an outfit. But one thing I just don’t care about is how my bags look on the inside. I barely find the time to organise my inbox, let alone the inside pockets of every bag that’s on standby ahead of its next outing.
I see my handbags as a vessel for “stuff”, and, if I’m being really honest, as a useful extension of the (very limited) storage in my London flat. Whatever the handbag, I don’t want to be too precious about how I’m using it. I don’t meticulously empty a bag of my belongings each time I swap it for another, so every one that I own is lined with a light (sometimes not so light) covering of pound coins, biros, stray lipsticks and iPhone cables, along with receipts, used train tickets and folded up bits of paper.
Almost every time I reach for a handbag I have an, “Ohh, that’s where those headphones were” moment, or am reunited with a favourite lipstick I last used three months ago. Occasionally, it means I misplace my bin storage keys, and I’ve lost countless office door passes to the depths of a disorganised tote (I found one from a job I left two years ago in a forgotten clutch bag just this week – whoops). Sometimes there are nice surprises: yesterday it was a Pret Godfrey gingerbread man I’d bought four days earlier and forgotten about.
Fortunately for me and other women like me, my messy handbag habit was validated by the spring/summer 2024 shows, where for the first time in my memory totes were filled with actual stuff – the unglamorous accoutrements of everyday life. At Miu Miu the bags were overflowing with spare shoes and clothes, rolled up newspapers peeped from the top of Bottega Veneta’s oversized basket bags, and Balenciaga’s smart leather tote bags were laden down with keychains and trinkets.
