Fashion History - Purses and Handbags
The handbag is an essential element of a woman's wardrobe that is both functional and fashionable. Used to carry wallets, lipstick, and other essentials, handbags can be as simple as a drawstring denim bag or a high priced, designer status symbol.
Throughout most of history, both men and women used handbags for practical purposes. Ancient people used bags to carry weapons, tools, food, and flint (for fire making). Otzi the Iceman, a 5,300 year old, well preserved mummy found in the Italian Alps in 1991 had a pouch attached to his belt containing flint, a drill, an awl, and dried fungus.
Egyptians of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2160 BC) used double handled bags made of linen and papyrus. The Ancient Greeks carried byrsa, or coin purses hung from the belt which could be hidden in folds of clothing.
Archaeologists discovered an ornamental leather purse in an Anglo-Saxon burial mound in Britain. Dated to 625 CE (AD), the bag had deteriorated but showed evidence of gilt, silver, and garnet ornamentation and probably hung from straps on a belt. The purse still contained 40 gold coins.
A Byzantine relic pouch from the 9th century was found at St. Michael's in Switzerland. Lined in red silk, the bag featured embroidered lions on a blue background.
Man With Bag - 1500's
Medieval Handbags
In the 13th century, western Europeans carried small purses called almoners; alms bags that held coins to give to the poor.
Working people, artisans, pilgrims, and peasants used what we would call handbags. The common mode of travel during medieval times was by foot and bags offered a convenient way to carry small goods from place to place. The poor man's bag was made of recycled leather and heavy fabric and is known from depictions in artwork of the period.
More sophisticated versions were used by royalty and the aristocracy in their persuit of courtly love. Beautiful handbags given as gifts were decorated with romantic scenes and sometimes humorous mottoes. A medieval gentleman gave his intended bride a pretty purse full of coins.
Medieval art sometimes used a drawstring purse to suggest female sexuality.
Handbags in the Renaissance
By the 15th century, large handbags with cast metal frames were carried by male aristocrats and royalty. Over time, handbags grew more fanciful, made of elegant fabrics with elaborate embellishments.
The Elizabethans enjoyed allegory and visual puns, for instance, an acorn shaped purse to connote thrift. The Museum of London displays a crocheted bag shaped like a frog. Made of cream colored silk, and silver mesh, the frog's mouth served as the opening of the bag.
During the late 16th to early 17th centuries, tiny bags were status symbols for women. Small, embroidered bags held rose petals, spices, and herbs to cover up the smell of body odor and ward off infectious agents believed to be carried on unpleasant aromas.
The late Renaissance saw the development of the evening bag. Men and women carried flat bags that held gaming chips and coins for gambling. The bottoms of the bags were decorated with coats of arms used for identification.
Handbags used for dress became more ornate with interlocking panels and interesting shapes. Illustrations depicted stories in panels that created comic book like narratives.
Early 19th Century Handbag
18th Century Handbags
Early in the 1700's, men used small coin purses closely attached to their belts as hanging bags were seen as feminine. Women carried small bags dangling from their wrists. Women used large bags as well. Work bags held sewing projects. Pear shaped bags worn belted at the hip carried personal items like smelling salts, fans, and opera glasses.
The word "pocketbook" derives from a dimity pocket - a small book that featured a calender, recipes, songs, or fashion engravings.
The long, slim Directoire or Empire fashions of the late 1700's left no place for hidden pockets. Handbags made of netting (a reticule), silk printed commemorative and novelty bags became popular.
Vintage Handbag - Small Tapestry Bag
Handbags of the 19th Century
Fashions of the 19th century lost the slim silhouette when skirts became progressively larger with each decade until mid century. Women carried drawstring reticules and frame handbags, as well as small hand held bags for coins and small personal items.
The domestic ideal of Victorian England popularized bags that depicted sentimental scenes with embroidered and beaded images of homes and flowers. Women often made their own bags for a personal touch and to show off needlework skills.
Women began to own bags for different occasions; for shopping and travel, both hand and commerically made. The 1880's saw tapestry bags based on the popular luggage style called carpet bags.
Louis Vuitton introduced luggage and hand held travel bags that featured hand painted initials.
Vintage Metal Mesh Bag
Vintage Bag - 1940's
Early 20th Century Handbags
Between 1900 - 1914, exotic textiles melded with practicality and introduced tiny silver mesh bags, large velvet bags with hand carved frames, beaded German and Italian bags featuring fairy tale castles, Renaissance landscapes, and ladies in hoop skirts.
Beautiful bags cut from antique textiles were embellished with ribbon and lace. The love of Oriental styles influenced bags with Asian themed designs.
The Suffragetes of the early 20th century popularized leather shoulder bags.
Fashions of the 1920's offered slim, plain handbags held close to the body. In 1923, Hermes transformed feed and saddle bags into fashionable accessories and set a style that lasted until today by using army cargo zippers as fasteners.
In 1932, Vuitton introduced a satchel used to carry champagne bottles and setting a style that has lasted for 80 years with shoulder strap bucket bags.
In 1933, Hermes created a handbag around a square piece of horse blanket, featuring thin central straps around a box shaped purse.
Restrictions on leather, metal and various materials during world War II influenced the simple, classic styles of the 1940's. Hand held bags made of fabric, knotted rayon, and cardboard were shaped liked envelopes and closed with flaps held down with simple clasps or toggles.
Hippie Style Bag
Birkin Bag
Coach Bag
Handbag Icons of the Late 20th Century
Purse styles of past decades carried on into the 1950's. Women often carried bags that matched their shoes. Fashionable women used cocktail bags for evening wear - small clutch bags made of satin and decorated with sequins.
Coco Chanel introduced her 2.55 bag in February of 1955. The quilted bag featured a long, double chain shoulder strap for a hands-free bag that was unusual in a time of hand held bags. This bag, and it's imitators are still popular today.
Short strapped handbags made of a plastic called Lucite came in boxy shapes with pearlized, marbled, or faux wood designs that are now popular with collectors.
In 1935, Hermes came out with the Sac Haut a Courrioses, a rectangular shaped bag with a flat bottom, made of fine leather, crocodile or lizard skin that was waxed to a fine sheen. When, in 1956, Grace Kelly used one of these bags to conceal her pregnancy from the press, the bag became a fashion icon. Known popularly as the Kelly bag, it became the most famous handbag of the 20th century.
The hippie culture of the 1960's brought a new interest in historical and ethnic styles. Shoulder bags made of exotic materials, or handmade macrame could be large as a tote bag or small bags to carry a few personal items. Fringed suede and hand tooled leather bags were also popular with the hippie set.
For the more conservative young women, fabric shops sold wood handles and kits for making lined, detachable fabric bags that could be changed to match any outfit. Some of these bags featured embroidered initials.
In 1884, Hermes introduced the Birkin bag, the ulimate status bag created by Jean Louis Dumas for Jane Birkin who had spilled the contents of her bag while on an airplane. Made of exotic animal hides and lined with goat skin, a Birkin closes with the top flopped over, wrapped and locked with buckle straps.
Bonnie Cashin designed colorful leather bags for Coach in the 1960's. The handmade bag with credit card pockets, and all matching hardware includes bags of rare leathers and limited editions, and has continued as a handbag icon to this day.
Newsreel from 1955 Featuring Handbags
Works consulted:
Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion; edited by Valerie Steele; Scribner Libary
Carried Away: All About Bags by Fared Chenoune; Vandome Press
http://www.iceman.it/en; Otzi the Iceman; South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology
Coach Bag Official Site
Hisotry of Shoes Part 1
- The History of Shoes - Ancient and Early Footwear
Though we love the latest styles, many shoe styles have been around for a long time. Flip-flops are a very old type of sandal, worn by the ancient Egyptians and archeological evidence indicates that shoes have been worn for thousands of years.
History of Shoes - 19th to 20th Century Footwear
- History of Shoes - 19th and 20th Century Women's Footwear
The Industrial Revolution introduced a whole new world of shoes. Previously, shoes had not been created for both the right and left foot. Mass production led to common sizing, new styles and colors, mass marketing, and sports shoes.
Comments
Dolores, I just finished reading another interesting and fabulous hub from you! The hard work you put into each and every one of your articles are extraordinary.
I'll be impatiently awaiting your next fashion history hub!
Thank you,
Sannel
What a great hub - Oh, I love stuff like this! Pictures and a history lesson - so brilliant. I have a rhinestone-encrusted bag from 1949 (don't know where it came from). It's falling apart but it's so pretty...and tiny. Isn't it interesting how big our purses have grown? Too much responsibility and not enough fashion sense?
In fact I've carried such heavy bags they have hurt my shoulder. Whew. Time to go back to the pretty delicate bags of yore...
My cousin in NYC has a tapestry bag like yours in the photo. As well as bakelite purses - from his mother - who never threw anything out.
And then back in the 20s when my mother and father came to NYC from NC, my very stylish mother sent hats and handbags back home to her mother (who never threw anything out) up until my grandmother's passing on in the 60s. So a cousin in NC has a collection over 80 years old. He did a family reunion and had all the elders model the bags and hats.
Rated way up and more. Oh yay!
What an interesting history lesson on handbags. I love high quality bags, like Coach, myself. Cool art work and facts. Rated up!
Fascinating history of handbags Dolores, and great to know that the 'manbag' also has a long and honourable tradition! Thanks for sharing all this great information
Very intestering piece.
Hello Dolores, what a fascinating history of the handbag, I adore the vintage metal mesh bags I wish they would come back into fashion, I would have one for sure.
Thank you for sharing. Best wishes MM
My friend, Dolores Monet. Thank you so much for share this information with us. I really enjoy reading this hub and I learn much from you. Better know the history than just wore of handbags. Well done and great research. I'll press all buttons here, except funny. Have a good day!
Prasetio
Thanks for this Dolores, really enjoyed reading about the history of bags. Well done.
Fascinating handbag research, Dolores. Enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. I think your love of purses and handbags shines through your words. Do you have a large personal collection?
Michelle - thank you! Funny that the video suggests that. My current handbag (and one of my all time favorites) cost me one dollar at Flower Mart two years ago. Ha ha!
Hi, Sannel - thank you very much! I would like to add some more photos, but have to get out and take some.
Hi, Bk - thank you for reading and sharing your story. So cool how they brought out all the old stuff and modeled it. Sounds like a party that I would enjoy!
Hi, Steph - the big name handbags have become so popular. There was a shop in a nearby resort that was selling knock-off Coach bags last year. The store was raided by the police. It was a huge scandal. For some reason it made me laugh.
Hi, CM - so there is the man bag right at the top. I really would like a pretty bag to show in my profile, but had to put an older image first. But the bag that the peasant is carrying is so today! I think I had one just like it! Thank you!
Writer - thank you!
Hi, Prasetio - thank you very much, dear. Well maybe I missed something there and should have included some handbag humor, haha! I do have some background that I have not mentioned about vintage bags stolen, disappeared silver mesh bag from 1914, and one of the bags that I may have 'accidentally' perloined from a minor celebrity.
carter - thank you very much!
Hi, drbj - thank you kindly. Well I once had quite a few more, including a long mesh bag with metal fringe. But when my sister broke up with her best friend, somehow, several of the old bags went with her. The fight continued on for several years. And I must confess to a few late night, alcohol fueled phone calls to the purse snatcher in a vain attempt to have them returned. (If you read this Patti, I want them back. I know it's been 35 years, but who would throw that sort of thing away?)
Those mesh bags were really special, Dolores, I can understand your pain at losing any. Perhaps if you offered a reward - one of the modern knockoffs in exchange. Whatcha think?
The person in question is no longer available to ask and has been avoiding us for 35 years.
What a great hub - fantastically researched and written! I especially loved reading about the Elizabethans and their "pun" handbags - actually LOL at that one. :) Voted up!
Wow this was such a fun Hub, and so very interesting! Id have to say that i think my favorite era would have been the 40's, i just loved the style! :)
Fashionista - thank you very much. Glad you got a laugh. I'd like to include more humor in these fashion hubs.
Kerri - thank you. Yes, I think the 40's were so classic!
Very well written and interesting! I LOVE PURSES! Voted-Up!! I am a NEW FAN of yours now!!! God Bless!
I wrote a comment on this hub last night but I don't think it ever posted. :( Anyway, I love this fashion history hub, dolores. Your fashion history hubs are always so intriguing and captivating. I have a tapestry case from the Victorian era (I believe) that has the original playing cards still inside. The tapestry case is of a floral design with little pink roses and a tan/beige background. Metal clasp of course. I also have a metal mesh bag that I believe is from the early 20th century. Thanks so much for sharing. Voted up and beautiful.
I saw your comment elsewhere about this first photo (because my last hub covered advanced techniques for photo capsules). I suspect your concern is that the tall aspect ratio doesn't create a good thumbnail. To neutralize the effect, I suggest you use other software to create a square image with white left and right "wings." The appearance here will then be something like if you chose "quarter size," except that the thumbnail will use the full vertical dimension.
There's another option to what I just suggested. In the hub I just mentioned, I had the same problem. Since the first image I needed to discuss wouldn't work, I preceded it with a graphic image (quarter-size).
I like reading blogs. it needs lot of creativity to frame ideas into words. You are doing a great deed by posting such informative articles.
HI, Kitty - no, I don't see your other comment. But I have set the comment capsule so that they do not display without my approval. Did that after someone left a disparaging remark about a real person and did not think it appropriate. Also had some comments with some pretty foul language that might offend people. So this works out well.
The bag with the old cards sounds really fabulous - what a thing to have. Don't you wonder if she ever used the cards? Then you start to wonder what of yours may wind up in some stranger's hand 100 years from now. I think people kept those old mesh bags, there is something about metal. After I wrote this hub, I ran into the kitchen and slathered silver polish all over the mesh bag pictured above but it was not silver. Thank you!
Howard - well thank you so much! No, my complaint with myself is that I would prefer to use one of my own pix for the image that shows. It's just me being hard headed which may be a more difficult thing to solve than your suggestion. And your suggestion is rather complicated - I am a real dope with technology.
declatte - well you are too kind. It's all about the do-ray-me, haha. Plus it's fun!
Very interesting piece and a fun read. Thanks for sharing!
I love your historic hubs on fashion and how they have developed over the years. Great information throughout the hub but some of the more interesting things to me are the purse found in 625AD...really surprised that the purse still held 40 gold coins..and how the vintage bags of 1940 look pretty much how bags look today....I had to make sure I was ready the information correctly as the handbag in that photo looks pretty close to my wife's current bag.
Hi, Cogerson - I know. And the one at the top of the peasant, a drawing from the Middle Ages, shows a bag that lots of women carry. Amazing how some things don't change over the years. Thank you very much!
I Love history. I had no idea that handbags had such a rich and interesting one. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Dolores Monet, This is very well reserched Hub.. really liked to read the history of bags and purses. As everyone knows hardly any female would leave home without her purse if not bag. So it these are very important part of our lives. The pictures were nice.
Guy - thank you!
sweetie1 - I enjoyed creating it and digging out my old vintage handbags to photograph. Thank you!
A remarkable history on purses and handbags. Not only is this interesting, it is entertaining. (And that is not easy to achieve) - so I vote this up and tap each button except for funny.
Your own photography is stunning. I am drawn to the hippie bag for obvious reasons. :) I so appreciate all the hard work you put into preparing this hub.
What a treasure you are - and one that I shall keep!
vocalcoach~
Hi, vocal coach - thank you so much! Actually, I got close to making this funny but avoided it in an attempt to be informational. Now I try to stick the silly parts in comments section. You are so kind! And such a nice compliment on the pictures - I've been working on some pix for here and having a terrible time.
Hi Dolores, thank you for stopping by Home Look For Less.
Now onto those three little words designer, vintage, and handbag. Delighted so many people share our vision for attainable aspiration.
Hi, Venus - I love your attitude and what was it you said, how fashion is for sheep and style is unique. Thanks for stopping by!
Your hub reminded myself a promise of Christmas gift - a handbag! I was checking out this piece somewhere in the local bizarre. Anyway, you had put so much meaning and creativity in to an ordinary topic. More power!
Hi, singernurse - ordinary topic? Whoah! Watch what you say about women's handbags. They are very important! (Did I mention my current favorite cost $1.00? haha) Thank you so much!
Oops! Hahaha! Sorry for that. What I meant is you've given a "kick" on a usual girl thing. Lol. Reading this hub makes me wanna go shopping! :)
Dolores Monet, Marvelous concise educational hub on the history of purses! Great stylish fashionable presentation as well! I am one that is never without a purse! Thank You for sharing, Peace & Blessings!
Carlon Michelle 7 months ago
Oh what fun this hub was to read. I love handbags too. You have a beautiful collection of vintage bags Delores. The video was absolutely adorable and funny as there was no shame in the message presented. "Spend money on an expensive stylish handbag and you will draw rich stylish friends." Too funny. Smile!