The History of Women's Handbags: Part I
If you are obsessed with handbags, you will want to keep this email.
It’s so funny being someone who is an official “handbag expert.” As a result of being accidentally sucked into the clutch vortex, I have thrown myself into the history of the handbag to speak about trends, cycles, and designs intelligently. Funnily enough, history repeats itself, and that will be something you will see in this series. It will also allow me to see how many of you are into this versus what I am already writing about. Have a think and let me know if I should keep going or not. Check it out and read below. 👜
Since women were permitted to carry them, handbags have represented independence and empowerment. Tradition and history show that it took until the Middle Ages for that to happen. Sounds absolutely mad, doesn't it? Well, history has dictated that handbags were founded on necessity. Still, women have always meant so much more purely based on what they carry, giving a new meaning to the popular hashtag #WhatsInYourBag.
As far back as the Old Stone Age in 38,000 BCE, fiber pouches were used to store food and tools for hunting and gathering, the true hands-free revolution predated the runways with Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel with a quilted belt bag more than 350 centuries ago. When checking the handbag history books, the next milestone is during the Neolithic Period in 5300 BC, when Otzi the Iceman was discovered as a well-preserved mummy found in the Italian Alps with another, wearing a belt with a pouch hanging holding his necessities, and Ancient hieroglyphs were seen of men with small drawstring pouches around their waist.
Ironically, since the dawn of time, this set the stage for bags and men as women were more of an afterthought in our multibillion-dollar handbag business. Funnily enough, the word "bag" dates back to around 1200 CE to the Norse "baggi," meaning “pack” or “bundle.”
A necessary frame of reference is that the key silhouettes that we use today were all created for men:
The Doctor's bag, with this silhouette, was found as far back as 350 BC, long before the Miu Miu Carryall.
Doctor’s Bag circa 1910 The Satchel (bag with a flap) was discovered in 1340 and used as a money bag (by its Latin definition) in the Middle East.
The Crossbody was created in the 1700s once again as a coin purse used primarily by men.
The Attache bag was used by attorneys to carry their important documents in France in the 1850's.
The Boston Bag was originally used by England’s House of Commons, where a green bag sat behind the Speaker’s chair to hold public petitions.
The green bag behind the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons Chamber is used by MPs who want to present a petition to the House. The Hobo was used to describe migrant workers in the United States who were homeless, rode freight trains for work, carrying their belongings in a sack tied with a stick, which later was used for its namesake of a slouchy bag with a handle.
The Backpack was first created with the Merriam Knapsack in 1877 for the United States Army.
The Tote was created in 1944 by L.L. Bean to carry ice for fishing.
L.L.Bean Ice Carrier as featured in the 1944 Fall Catalog The Messenger Bag, invented by the De Martini Globe Canvas Company in 1950, was specifically designed for telephone linemen to access their tools while high on a telephone pole.
Women would have to wait until the 14th century for it to be socially acceptable to carry around anything visible (predating the empowering era of pockets that it is) with a "girdle pouch," a belt with an external pocket. Depending on your class, the material it was made of and what you were carrying would reflect your class. It's important to note that women had large embroidered pockets on belts beneath their skirts, accessed through slits in their dresses, like early fanny packs. They were then replaced by the first official clutch, created in the Victorian Era, called "reticules," and made of decorative fabric holding no more than a handkerchief and smelling salts.
The bags started to get fancier with the "chatelaine" in the 16th century, a waist bag with a series of chains hanging from them, holding household items like scissors, keys, and sewing tools. This was the first real handbag flex since they were considered like jewelry as a status symbol.
With the Renaissance came the Elizabethan sweete bags, which hung near the lady parts and were filled with dried flowers to counter the time of poor hygiene and, ironically, to note that they were, in fact, a sign of status and wealth. The reticule trend continued long through the Industrial Revolution, with a sleeker model, especially since dresses became slimmer and could no longer hang anything inside or outside their waistband. Go figure that.
Enjoyed this segment? Well, buckle up - we have a few hundred years to go. Stay tuned for the next Handbag History Installment…
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Love this, Emily! Thank you.