My other half as well as I were getting ready for our babymoon to Quebec City and, as a light packer himself as well as complying with a honeymoon in Asia featuring my very heavy luggage, Perry made it clear that logic as well as convenience would have to prevail on this one. I agreed. After all, I had the perfect bag to bring along with me: my relatively new Staud Shirley PVC tote.
The Shirley, you see, is a bit of a shortcut: the brand’s signature tote features a plastic, see-through bag with a handle as well as a second clutch inside of it. think of it as two bags in one, meant to be worn together or separately.
While in Canada, during daylight hours, I carried around my cellphone, travel guide, wallet, reading material as well as a couple of snacks. As the sun set, I’d relocate my phone as well as wallet in the pouch as well as enjoy my evenings tugging around a lighter load.
Needless to say, some type of the tote made it in the majority of our vacation pictures: it peeks through in a picture we took at the prison-turned-college-turned-library that we visited on day two as well as makes an appearance in a couple of images snapped at the famous Fairmont Le Château Frontenac hotel, for example.
As I take the tote out of my closet today after a winter spent in hibernation (the clutch is white, after all), those images come rushing back to me. since that’s the thing about bags: they’re always along for the ride, helping us bring pieces of ourselves throughout our days while becoming fodder for the memories we produce along the way.
Which is what makes the present state of the world that much odder: there are no rides to take, no places to go to, no destinations to bring our things to. Bags have effectively ended up being useless in a society that’s been spending months at home.
But as nearly-unbearable as our present situation has become, I wonder: do we miss carrying bags around? Although we likely all yearn for the days we used to schlep loads from our homes to our offices as well as then to the bar as well as back home, do we really crave the use of the bag itself?
I do. I miss stuffing the latest problem of the new Yorker alongside my program as well as my notebook in the long pocket of my black, square, work-appropriate Prada bag. just glancing at it now reminds me of the hours I spent clutching onto it while riding the new York City subway up as well as down the island while prepping for interviews as well as brainstorming the next huge thing to write about. I don’t miss aching shoulders at the end of each workday, however I do miss the structure of the day itself as well as exactly how all the things I carried in my bag were meant to shape it all for the better.
“I miss using my bags so much,” my good friend Nadine said a few nights ago, during a conversation about all the changes that the advent of the coronavirus has brought along with it. “To me, grabbing one before heading out of the home signals the start of my routine. I miss having that structure as well as purpose.”
Michaela, my sister, echoed her sentiments: “I lastly decided to bring my summer bag out of hiding the other day and, in the process, I emptied my winter bag of its former contents. I came across my monthly metro card as well as my train ticket. It reminded me that I had a life prior to this catastrophe.”
As the conversation pivoted towards the warming weather as well as its role in pushing folks outside their homes for short walks or grocery runs, the consensus among a group of 20- as well as 30-something women seemed to be that, although bags are starting to be useful again, their material roster is much different than it was a simple four months ago.
“I lastly decided to use a new bag I had bought in the winter for the summer as well as all I put in are gloves, masks, my phone, wallet as well as hand sanitizer,” Jamie said longingly, reminiscing about the days she’d fill her purse up with makeup to go straight out for the night from the office.
“I associate a bag with going out,” Roxanne said. “But since I’m barely going out it almost seems weird to bring a bag. I honestly get a little depressed looking at my bags since they remind me of life pre-corona.”
As protesters take to the streets all around the country, their bags have likewise morphed into grander statements, holding valuable possessions like IDs as well as phones alongside other belongings, in situation they are arrested or requirement to get in touch with anyone—a function that calls back to the original use of the product, an product meant to gather tools needed to get through the day.
The role of handbags in the advancement of civilization is commonly overlooked: although today marketed as fashion accessories, bags were born out of a requirement to gather materials for survival. Self-made pouches constructed with tree bark as well as fibers were used by hunter-gatherers as a way to store as well as transport loose food as well as tools discovered each day. In ancient civilizations, both men as well as women walked around with drawstring purses dangling from their hips, likely carrying more than just currency.
Of course, the handbag of today is the result of several shifts in forms as well as function, adapting to an similarly shifting society. Pre-COVID-19, the bag became more than a provider of things we discovered along the way, instead containing the things we had already claimed as ours as well as reminded us of home: the book we can’t seem to put down as well as hope to dive into while riding the bus, a loose pacifier that our kids stuffed in there, a remote control that weirdly discovered its way in or a toothbrush as well as underwear since who knows where the day will take us?
But as the virus hit as well as turned the bag useless at least for some time, might the product be shapeshifting once again in concept? What has the bag ended up being during quarantine other than a memento of a life that when was? Perhaps, just that. Maybe, during this period of worldwide pause, the bag has taken on the role of nostalgic hero, a representation of the more enjoyable, cultural, outdoors-y as well as interesting life we claimed as ours as well as that—hopefully—will soon be ours again.
No matter the size or the style or the time period, bags have always represented the anti-quarantine: used exclusively when really leaving the house, they are indicators of adventures as well as experience as well as trips (even to the grocery store!) to come. until then, you’ll discover me sitting by my closet, staring at my red mark cross handbag, reminiscing about all the awesome times I had while carrying it with me.