I’m fascinated by the tiny-bag trend. Every time I see a celebrity toting a micro purse, I wonder what they keep in them. Does Rihanna store a handful of thimbles? Is Emily Ratajkowski actually carrying an American Girl doll purse filled with tiny doll food? These specimens are absurdly small, so mini that it seems more appropriate to daintily pinch their handles than to apply a five-finger grip. Also, little bags are luxurious. It’s a home-to-private-car, delegating-everything-to-the-assistant type of accessory.
I admit that although I love to look at tiny bags, I’ve always thought they have little to do with my own life. I’m that commuter lady you see every morning, frantically digging in her bag’s black hole for her MetroCard a minute before the subway arrives. I’m the person who pulls out lunches and snacks from the recesses of my carryall: ready-to-spill Tupperwares of tofu, Ziplocs stuffed with leaky grapes. I’m the woman who, when she searches for her makeup, unearths a half-open glass bottle streaked with liquid foundation. Sometimes, a stick of chewing gum will become dislodged from its package and then, due to jumbling and pressure from other items, morph into a sticky mass at the bottom of my bag. Sometimes, these blobs are even made up of two different types of gum that have welded together.
In a way, my medium-size bag’s untidy insides were a cry for help. When I saw those tiny, carefree lady bags at Jacquemus and the necklace purses at Giambattista Valli from Spring 2018, they looked almost like bag therapy. Maybe, in carrying them, I could cut out the junk, and whittle down my everyday needs to the bare minimum.
To start, I chose a lilliputian Mark Cross patent leather piece the length and width of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Mark Cross is the same heritage brand responsible for creating a polished luggage bag for the ultimate lady, Grace Kelly, for her 1954 film Rear Window.) Carrying it was immediately life-changing, especially physically. The contents were considerably different for me: a pickup ticket for a shoe I was getting fixed, a slim stick of cover-up, eyeliner,, a card wallet, and a spare contact lens. No room for my laptop. In fact, five of the bags equaled the size of my MacBook Air. One immediate plus was my daily subway entrance: I knew exactly where the card was, because there was nowhere for it to hide. And when I got receipts, I had no choice but to put them away, rather than leave them crumpled and loose.
I wore other bitty bag incarnations, too, like a hot pink top handle by Maryam Nassir Zadeh, fit for a life-size Barbie, and another Mark Cross piece, a gold box with a chain that could be worn as a necklace—just big enough to hold a deck of cards. When I brought them out with me, they were met with the sorts of compliments usually reserved for a newborn baby or a puppy—two things which happen to be similar in size to my bag. “It’s so cute!” “Adorable!” “It’s sooo tiny!”
My hands felt lighter, and so did I. Less worrying. Less fumbling. I had a carefree air, imagining I was at a party in the ’60s and ’70s where all women were carrying Judith Lieber minaudières, those, fun, gem-encrusted clutches in the shapes of toads and grasshoppers. Tiny bags are not so serious, utilitarian. But while I did enjoy moonlighting as a delicate lady for a few days with my rotating collection of small bags, I had to remember to carry only a small bag. Adding a larger bag defeats the mini purse’s refinement. I learned this when I was running errands and stopped by the drugstore for calcium chocolates and disposable razors. I had nowhere to keep them in my Polly Pocket coin purse, and alas, walked out with my items in a freebie plastic bag. It was a ridiculous sight: A woman holding a shot-glass-sized purse and a limp polyurethane sack.
Nevertheless, carrying around a bag the size of a first-generation iPhone has been refreshing: It feels like the gateway to a more organized life. There’s no space for snacks, but then maybe eating square meals at a table is a good thing. Loose change gets compiled elsewhere, as it should. There’s no space for random pamphlets I should have recycled long ago, old makeup that isn’t even the right shade for my skin. And unless I’m planning on picking up some groceries or working on my computer, it’s been surprisingly practical for most occasions. As it turns out, bag therapy works in more ways than one: I feel, emotionally as well as physically, as though I have no extra baggage.
