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5 hours ago
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Fashion sometimes excludes people on grounds that are truly nasty and toxic and which reflect and drive fundamental problems in our culture: race, weight, wealth. So I hesitate to bring up what I’m about to say because it is small-fry compared with those issues. What I want to talk about today is not, in the scheme of things, any kind of hard luck story. But I am going to bring it up anyway.
The microaggression for which I would like to call out fashion, today, is for all the times it has made me feel excluded because my handbag is inelegantly big and heavy. I have quite often felt like a no-hope outcast from glamour, on the grounds that the outfits fashion celebrates on catwalks or billboards or red carpets feature a handbag no bigger than a hardback novel, while the bag I carry to the office and back every day is closer in scale to a laundry basket.
The disconnect between the bags most of us carry and the bags that are held up as aspirational is almost total. Are handbag designers unaware of the invention of the laptop? Do they know a special shop that sells umbrellas the size of fountain pens? And that’s before we’ve addressed the almost total lack of representation, on any of fashion’s platforms, of the “overspill bag”.
Those generic cotton tote bags, for carrying the returns parcel you need to drop off and the dishwasher tablets you need to buy, your extra cardigan or gym trainers, are an unavoidable part of modern life. They are everywhere: bundled under desks, hanging off buggy straps, wedged lumpily between knees at the bus stop. But woefully underrepresented in fashion.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the evening bags we are supposed to buy, many of which are so laughably minuscule that I can only assume everyone else leaves their doors unlocked and their keys at home when they go to parties. In fashion, bags are accessories, their function primarily decorative. Which is not how it works in real life.
There is an element here of snobbery, or sexism, or both. It can feel as if having a job, and being a chic woman, are two incompatible identities. Most handbags are designed for ladies who lunch, not women who work. Sometimes I go to fashion industry events straight from the office and I feel sort of embarrassed that I’ve got my big work bag with me, which when you think about it is properly mad since fashion is what my job actually is, so how could my job make me feel as if I don’t belong in fashion? Still. A cute little bag feels like a finishing touch to an outfit; a great big one is a downer.
Well, I have good news for you. Fashion has seen the error of its ways, and a new era of inclusivity has arrived, on the issue of bag size. The capacious, practical, ready-for-anything bag, with room for spare tights, phone bank and emergency snacks is the new It bag. I feel seen.
This means that now is a good time, should you be in the market, to buy a new bag. So, a few thoughts. First: try on a bag just as you try on a pair of shoes. If it’s not comfortable to carry, put it down and walk away: your back will thank you, and no one walks gracefully hunched under a badly weighted bag. Second: if you need a big bag, that is probably because you are out and about, so you also need to think about security. At least one pocket that closes is essential. If you carry your phone on a strap, key clips are a useful tether. Look for a bag which folds in on itself when you put it over your shoulder rather than gaping open: Anthropologie’s Love Knot Slouchy Bag (£98), which has been thoughtfully constructed with this in mind, or Sézane’s suede Gabin bag (pictured here, £330).
Does the larger It bag herald a new era of fashion size inclusivity? Probably not, to be honest. But even a small step in the right direction is big news.
Hair and make up: Sophie Higginson using Hair by Sam McKnight and Giorgio Armani. Top, £95 and trousers, £195 both from Rise & Fall. Coat, £210, Boden. Suede bag, £330, Sezane. Model: Lily Fofana at Milk
