Purse. Tote. Satchell. Handbag. Victoria & Albert Museum exhibit : Bags: Inside Out :

In a world full of trends, I want to remain a classic, with the perfect handbag……Iman

Winston Churchill never left home (or the office) without it. It was his famous dispatch box. The red leather, rather large box, was one of seven used during Churchill’s time as Secretary of State for the colonies. It sold a few years ago, at Sotheby’s London for 158,500 Pounds. 250% above the estimated value.

Bags: Inside Out

Winton’s dispatch box will be on view at the V&A Museum in London through September 2021. V&A is taking us on a grand tour with the Bags: Inside Out exhibit. This is a fascinating history of the not-so-humble accessory, from military rucksacks to despatch boxes, Birkin bags to Louis Vuitton luggage. More than 300 items ranging from the 16th century to the modern-day will be on exhibit. Bags: Inside Out explores the style, function, design, and craftsmanship of the ultimate accessory.

Curator Dr. Lucia Savi spent over two years curating the objects to include. She began her selections from the existing 2,000 bags in the V&A achieve, representing about 80% of the exhibit. The remaining 20%, she handpicked from private collections and celebrities.

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“With this exhibition, I really wanted to tell a story that looks at the nature of bags and their duality,” Dr. Savi says. “They are both private and public objects that tell people who we are.” If handbags tell people who we are, then the exhibition makes clear who Dr. Savi is. And she is not one to do things halfway. The vision she and her team had for the actual site is quite amazing. Along with the hundreds of bags curated for display, the exhibition hall itself has also been modeled on a giant handbag. Sprawling across two floors, the lower level has been designed to represent the interior and the upper floor as the exterior.

Dr. Savi has made it clear that this is not a Ladies Only exhibit. “There’s a misconception that women are the only ones who wear bags!” Not true. This is why visitors will see traditional Japanese Inros, worn by men in the 1700s to carry ink pads. Throughout most of history, both men and women used handbags for practical purposes. Ancient people used bags to carry weapons, tools, food, and flint. 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 hidden in folds of clothing.

Dr. Savi has taken a broad thematic approach to the layout and flow of the exhibit. She wanted the exhibit not only to be a visual experience but informative. How is that purse made? The Design and Making process, from sketch to sample, sewing to selling, is on full view and fascinating. A ‘maker’s table’ will allow visitors to get up close with bag making processes and materials, alongside newly commissioned interviews with designers and makers. Sketches, samples, and prototypes from international fashion houses and the UK luxury brand Mulberry will show the design process’s innovative early stages.

Name that bag

Name that bag… For some time, status and identity have prevailed in the ‘bag business!’ The bag has always had a spotlight, and in the last decades, the celebrity culture has assumed that identity and made it it’s own. In 1956 Hermés re-named the ‘Sac a Depeche’ (mailbag)the Kelly Bag in honor of Grace Kelly. Also on exhibit is the ‘Lady Dior’ handbag named after Princess Diana. The Fendi sequined ‘Baguette’ bag worn by and stolen from Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City’s most famous scenes. She boldly told the robber that it was not a bag, “it’s a Baguette!” And the Louis Vuitton ‘Monogram Miroir’ Speedy bag by Marc Jacobs, in gold or silver, was popularised by Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. The first-ever made Hermès Birkin bag, constructed in 1984, made for and owned by Jane Birkin, is on display, with the faint outline of old glue from the stickers she would put on the bag. Currently, a Birkin Bag will run between 10,000 to 150,000 Pounds. Mulberry Handbags worn by Kate Moss and Alexa Chung are also featured.

Upstairs | Downstairs

Back upstairs in Design and Making, the exhibition takes on a ‘who’s who’ of design, featuring a playful display of whimsical bags. Lulu Guinness’s rose basket to Chanel’s milk carton and Anya Hindmarch’s diamante Dairy Milk clutch. In another section featuring Takashi Murakami’s Louis Vuitton monograms, Vivienne Westwood clutches printed with 18th-century masterpieces, and Damien Hirst’s Prada Lucite bag with real embalmed insects is a visual highlight.

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Downstairs, other sections are devoted to travel, status and so-called “It bags,” like the sequined Fendi Baguette Carrie totes in Sex and the City. Louis Vuitton is well represented with travel trunks, luggage, and a striking travel trunk from the early 1900s. Upstairs, the focus is on craft and construction. Nevertheless, at the start of the show, Savi makes good use of the V&A’s historical collections. The forerunners of the modern handbag are varied. A tie-on pocket from the 1740s would have been hidden for safekeeping beneath its owner’s petticoat and hoops. Women wanted purses that would not be bulky or untidy in appearance, so reticules were designed. Reticules were made of fine fabrics like silk and velvet, carried with wrist straps. First becoming popular in France, they crossed over into Britain, where they became known as “indispensables.” Men, however, did not adopt the trend.

Personal Favorites

For me, the two standouts are both antique and vintage. I am most mesmerized by the Chatelaine of 1863-85. In all my vintage travels, I had never seen a more unique piece. It is to be worn about the waist and from which would have hung, courtesy of several chains, a series of small tools (this one has no fewer than 13 accessories, among them a thimble, a tiny notebook, and a magnifying glass). The symbolism of the latter is fascinating. It speaks as loudly as any mangle of the burdens and responsibilities of women – and yet it works, too, as an adornment, an exquisite triumph wrested from duty.

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My second favorite is the La Manifestation (The Demonstration) from 1945. Designed by Line Vautrin, the jeweler Vogue once called the poetess of mental. The clasp, finely sculpted bronze of tiny human figures crowded together, some with flags. The lines of this bag are exquisite. A small detail of gold at the base of the bag is an underlying statement to frame the clasp.

It’s a wrap

The exhibition wraps up with designers experimenting with innovative and environmentally sustainable materials, including a Stella McCartney backpack made from recycled ocean plastic waste and a bag crafted from decommissioned fire hoses by Elvis and Kresse.

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If you’re not going to be in London anytime soon, you might want to take a quick virtual tour below. It will give you an overview of the exhibit and the amazing two-story layout, and how it was so cleverly utilized to give the impression of an actual handbag! Enjoy…

Inside the Bags: Inside Out exhibition – a virtual tour of the towering exhibit. Click on the highlight.

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the guardian

Bags: Inside Out, which opens on Saturday, features over 250 objects spanning nearly 500 years, and seeks to explore the duality of bags as both private possession and public statement. The exhibition is laid out in two halves split between floors: the ground, entered via a tunnel designed to look like a zip, represents the cavernous bag interior, while the light and airy first floor space is the exterior.

The exhibition finishes with designers experimenting with innovative and environmentally sustainable materials, including a Stella McCartney backpack made from recycled ocean plastic waste and a bag crafted from decommissioned fire hoses by Elvis and Kresse.