The purse revisited

By: Christine Kreyling

Published On: May 07, 2010

The profile of woman in American society has grown a great deal in the past few decades. And this evolution is reflected in the expanding nature of her handbag.

I was recently reminded of this mutation in pursestyle when dressing for a toney reception: silk suit and heels. I stuffed self into pantyhose casing, feeling like a breakfast link, and gave a rueful glance at the sensibly cushioned flats in which I typically stride through life. I recalled Louisa May Alcott exhortation to her little women about party clothes—“let us be elegant or die!”—and regretted that I was fast approaching my expiration date.

About to head out, I grabbed by rote my everyday backpack—and then laughed at the incongruity reflected in the mirror. Clearly, I needed something more cocktail complementary. I found it buried in my closet: a slim, chocolate suede, Italian-made borsetta purchased years ago in a vintage shop because it reminded me of one my mother had saved as a memento of her pre-childbearing 1940s. I assembled my necessities and opened the purse, whose interior was bisected by a coin-and-key pouch, with slots for lipstick and powder compact.

It quickly became obvious, however, that my stuff was not going to rest easy in the bag of yesteryear. The good news was that lipstick dimensions haven’t changed since suede was cut and stitched. I did an adaptive reuse and shoved my biz cards into the powder compact space. And my iPhone and handkerchief slid in OK.

But forget the cases for reading and sunglasses. Ditto the fabric sack for toothpaste, brush, floss and spare contact lenses. And I couldn’t close the clasp of the coin pouch over my wad of keys. Worst of all was my wallet. Crammed with plastic for credit and debit, grocery and pet food discounts, lending privileges at various libraries, testaments to memberships in legions of organizations and insurance IDs, my beefy billfold made the sides of the flat bag bulge like a rodent-engorged snake.

The situation obviously called for a starvation diet. I quickly took from my wallet some cash and coins, driver’s license and debit card, removed half the keys from their ring and placed all in the coin pouch. I chose to hope that whatever I might have to read—say nametags—would be in large type, and to squint into the setting sun as I drove. Then I tucked my now svelte bag under my arm and sallied forth. As I made my way to the reception, however, I wondered how the ladies of my mother’s era managed to cram their lives into such slender receptacles. Did they shop after lunch with lettuce between their teeth?

Admittedly, Mom’s wallet housed only the most basic of cards in addition to actual cash. The keys on her chain were minimal by my standards: front and back doors, garage and only one for the car, sans the automatic door and trunk locks attachment. And she didn’t need reading glasses until she was over 70.

On the other hand, Mom never went anywhere without a small parfum spray, along with a container of tinted dust—“Suntan” for screened-door months, “Nude” for the depths of winter—to supply a matte finish to every peak and valley of her face. And she and her friends wore gloves that had to be put somewhere once they’d picked up menus and ordered tea. Not to mention that their handbags had to accommodate weed cases and lighters because they all smoked a pack-a-day. How did they do it?

As I pulled up to the Hermitage curb and gave my name to the valet—who looked with distaste at the dog fur permanently embedded in the upholstery—I realized that my mother’s generation assumed that life had limits as stringent as the girdles they wore or the purses they carried. They just smiled and made the best of it. As a female citizen of a more obese age, I doff my hat to them.