Bags are not a new invention, as long as humans have

had items to carry, we have created bags in which to

carry them. As early as 38,000 BCE, hunter-gatherer,
humans were using bundles and pouches made from
fibers to store and transport food and tools. The
drawstring purse was worn dangling from a belt by
both men and women from at least the time of
Ancient Rome to the Renaissance and beyond. The
woman’s handbag as we know it, however, is a much
more recent development in the long, humble history
of the bag.

The Birth of the Handbag

 Women’s Pockets, England mid – 18th Century, Los Angeles
County Museum of Art collections.lacma.org/node/232683

Prior to the invention of the handbag, women carried

necessities in pockets. But, unlike men’s pockets,
which were part of a man’s garment, a woman’s
pockets were an entirely separate garment, worn tied
around the waist under her skirts. The large volume of
women’s skirts made it easy to hide the bulk of
pockets. This changed in the last decade of the
eighteenth century, however, as high-waisted gowns
gained popularity.
Because of the slimmer silhouette of the new style
gowns, it became a grave fashion faux pas to wear
bulky pockets beneath one’s gown. Pocket-lines were
the panty-lines of the 1790s and no fashion-forward
woman would be caught sporting them. With the
death of women’s pockets, came the birth of the
women’s bag.

The precursor to the modern handbag was

the reticule or the indispensable, as it was sometimes
called. The reticule was a small bag, only large
enough to carry rouge, powder, a fan, perfume, and a
few visiting cards, but women quickly took to
carrying them whenever they went out. Not everyone
viewed the indispensable as quite so indispensable,
however.
 Reticule, France 1800 -1825, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art collections.lacma.org/node/214021

The Argument Against the Handbag

The first handbags were essentially women’s pockets

with handles attached to them, but women’s pockets,
because they were worn under a woman’s skirts and
close to her skin, were considered undergarments. So,
when bags for women first became popular, many
viewed them as vulgar or risque. As Caroline Cox
notes in Bags: An Illustrated History:
These early handbags were also daring, one of the
first examples of underwear as outerwear—and thus
for many a rather absurd affectation. The idea of a
woman parading her personal belongings in a visible
pocket was an act akin to lifting up her skirts and
publicly revealing her underwear.

Aside from the scandalousness of parading one’s

undergarments about for everyone to see, some
women viewed handbags as a poor alternative to
pockets.

Early American feminists, in particular, fought the

loss of pockets for women. They believed handbags
would never be as practical as pockets and advocated
for functional pockets built into women’s garments
like pockets were for men. For these women, pockets
for men and handbags for women became symbolic
of the inequality between the sexes and the struggle
for women’s equal rights, much in the way later
feminists would view the bra.

Whether one was in favor of or set against the

handbag for women, in the absence of functioning
pockets, a functional bag would quickly become an
inescapable component of a woman’s daily life.
Although it would go through many changes over the
years, its size, shape, or decoration shifting with each
new decade’s sensibilities, by the late-nineteenth
century the handbag was here to stay.

The Changing Form and Function of the Handbag

With the rise of the department store as a respectable

location for women to meet outside of their homes, it
became possible for them to stay away from home for
much longer than they could previously. With this
newfound freedom came the need to carry more than
what would fit in an impractically small reticule.

Woman’s Handbag, US c.1904, Los Angeles County

Museum of Art, collections.lacma.org/node/238715
At the end of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth, much more functional
bags began to replace the reticule. Made by luggage
creators like Louis Vuitton, these utilitarian bags, the
first actually to be called “hand-bags,” were
essentially miniature suitcases. They featured sturdy
handles, multiple internal compartments, and a snap
closure. These changes in the bag itself also marked a
change in the idea of a woman’s handbag- it became
something entirely her own. As noted by Anna
Johnson in Handbags: The Power of the Purse:

Unlike a flimsy mesh reticule or a decorative coin

purse sealed by a string, this bag snapped shut, and
for the first time, women could carry their things with
some degree of privacy. Men, who had long carried a
lady’s fan or her money, were supplanted by
increasingly practical, brilliantly structured bags,
and they have been mystified and excluded by the
handbag ever since.

In the post-World War I era, a woman’s role in

society was rapidly changing, as women won liberties
previously denied to them, including the right to vote.
As the decade turned and they strode boldly into the
Roaring Twenties and then the future beyond, greater
changes were on the horizon for women and for the
bags they carried along with them.

The Handbag as a Reflection of the Times

As the years progressed and handbags became further

entrenched in women’s daily lives, they became a
barometer for the times, adroitly reflecting the
sensibilities of the women who sported them and the
culture in which those women lived.

In times of prosperousness and excess, women

sported over-the-top bags. Jewelers in the 1930s
created minaudières, small boxes carried like a clutch,
which was crafted from luxurious materials, such as
silver and gold. In the seventies, women carried bags
made of shiny metals, made to reflect the bright lights
on the disco dance floor. The conspicuous wealth and
consumer culture of the 1980s produced large, flashy,
highly-decorated status bags. The handbag, in these
times, served as a status symbol, with the richest
women carrying the most expensive bags.

In the 1940s, women’s bags were simple and

functional, reflecting the more sober sensibilities and
limited resources of wartime. Shoulder bags, styled
after the military satchels men carried on the war
front, were worn slung over the shoulder or across the
body as women walked or cycled to and from their
jobs in support of the war effort. Later, this same style
of bag would be reclaimed by women in the sixties as
a down-to-earth counterpoint to the popular plastics
of the space age. The priorities of the age determined
the priorities of the handbag, including whether form
came before function or vice-versa.

In decades when women were breaking through

barriers and boldly challenging social mores, they
carried bags that reflected this. The brazen flapper of
the 1920s carried a sleek, color-coordinated clutch
with her she danced, drank, smoked, cut her hair
short, walked the streets without a chaperone, and
unashamedly wore makeup and pants. The
nonconformist, sexually liberated hippies of the 1960s
sported craftwork bags made of natural materials and
personalized them with patches and artwork. Daring
or dissident bags like these allowed women an
additional way to express themselves during times of
social change or upheaval.

Woman’s Lucite Purse, US C. 1953, Los Angeles

County Museum of Art, collections.lacma.org/node/188645
As the scientists developed daring new synthetic
materials, these materials were also used to create
modern handbags. When plastics began to be mass-
produced in the 1950s, women carried handbags
made of transparent lucite, a type of hard plastic.
Though this new plastic was exciting, lucite bags
could be dangerous: they were known to melt in the
heat and let off toxic gasses! Popular bags of the
sixties were made from similar space-age materials,
such as PVC and polyurethane, though they had
become much safer by then. Fire-retardant fleece,
ballistic nylon, nylon webbing, velcro, and even
kevlar have all been appropriated from other
industries and used in women’s handbags. No doubt
the next great breakthrough in material science will
be reflected in the next generation of women’s bags.

The Future of the Handbag

The handbag’s past may not be long, only a recent
few hundred years out of many millennia, but the
history of the handbag is the history of women:
women’s changing tastes, priorities, and roles in
society. Handbags have thrived in times of excess and
survived in times of scarcity, and even defied
repeated calls by feminists to replace them with
pockets. We cannot divine the future of the woman’s
handbag. But, if its past is any indicator, we can be
sure the handbag of the future will reflect the values
of the woman of the future.

Source: womensmuseum.wordpress.com