Handbags?qsrc=3044

Model at New York Fashion Week showing a Louis Vuitton handbag.

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A handbag, or purse in American English, is a medium to large bag, often fashionably designed, typically used by women, and used to hold personal items such as wallet/coins, keys, gloves, cosmetics, a hairbrush, cellular device or personal digital assistant, feminine hygiene products, etc.

Variations

A medium-to-small-sized handbag with a short handle, designed to be carried (clutched) in one's hand is often called a clutch.

A larger handbag with two handles is often called a tote^{[citation needed]}.

A pocketbook is similar to a handbag.

Vintage pocketbook

A security bag protects the carrier from travel theft. The handbag includes an invisible stainless steel strap sewn into the fabric and a protectant on the main zipper.

Man purse

In North America, handbags are traditionally only carried by women. However, increasingly, younger men carry one as a smaller alternative to a backpack; such a handbag is sometimes termed a manbag or, in American slang, murse^[1] (portmanteaus "handbag" and "man" with "purse" respectively), also male purse or man-purse.

Many of the styles are actually messenger bags.

Child's purse

Young girls also use small purses or clutches, but usually just for play or dress-up.^{[citation needed]}

Types of handbags

Crocodile skin handbags in a conservation exhibit at Bristol Zoo, England

• Clutch: Small, yet long (rectangular), evening bag without a handle.

• Satchel: A soft-sided case usually of leather, used to carry papers or books. Usually has a handle and often has a strap.

• Duffle bag: A large bag usually used for travel or sports.

• Tote: A medium to large bag with two straps.

• Messenger bag: A bag with a long strap to be worn across the body.

• Sling bag: A bag with a long strap (similar to a messenger bag), yet smaller.

Trivia

• In the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest, the protagonist, Jack Worthing, was found in a handbag in the cloakroom at Victoria Station as a baby, prompting Lady Bracknell's famous exclamation "A handbag?"
• A survey of shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, England, found that the average 30-year-old woman owns 21 handbags and buys a new one every three months, adding up to 111 over the course of a lifetime.^[2]

See also

Look up purse in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Purses

• Birkin Bag
• Coach (company)
• It Bag
• Louis Vuitton
• Prada
• RUEHL No.925
• Hansengross
• Vera Bradley
• Hester van Eeghen
• Kooba
• Purse hook
• Purse organizer
• Purse party
• English Retreads

References

Further reading

• Pedersen, Stephanie. Handbags - What Every Woman Should Know. Cincinnati: David & Charles. pp. 128 pages. ISBN 13 978-0-7153-295-0.