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 Handbags,
totes, purses, coffrets, and other bags we wear all the time in hands. A modern
woman cannot be thought without any kind of bag. We are so accustomed to
wearing bags that we cannot even imagine how we managed without them in the
previous times. And our grandmother really did without them. As
a separate accessory, a bag appeared some time back, in XIX century. Prior to this
period, women had to use secret pockets and leather bags attached to the waist to
keep necessary things on them.
Up
to XV century the bag-pocket was mainly used to keep money and small belongings
that sewed to the clothes directly. In most cases the bag was made of leather
to ensure durability. But it refers to men on the whole, while there
were no pockets on the women clothes. And the only women's garment was the apron
with pockets to keep and hold the things.
In
the early XV century the masters created small knapsacks to keep money and
small stuff. The knapsacks were hold in hands, and only in two centuries, women
would wear small bags attached to the inner side of their skirts. It was incredibly
uncomfortable to get money from such bags, though the risk of theft was
minimized.
In
XVII century ladies and gentlemen owned the trendy accessories that were fixed
to the waist dangling. Very often the cash was distributed in several bags and was
sometimes given for payment with the purse itself if the amount was appropriate.
The other reason why such a complicated way of wearing several purses was
popular is that thieves found it impossible to steal unless they rob. Even if
one or two purses were stolen somehow, the rest stayed with the owner.
Sometime
later the purses were replaced with the breeches with pockets and there was no
need in these purses any longer. However, men used to carry small knitted purses as wallets puttingthem in pockets. To the XVIII century women gained their pockets though they were secretly sewed in the lateral seam of the puffy skirt. In
the early XVIII century when rococo style originated and to XIX century women used
to wear bag-pouches richly decorated with embroidery, beads, pearls, either knitted
or weaved. And designers of that time had chances to create any models since
the women bag was like of the same function as the modern bag. The pouches were
made from various fabric, they were knitted, weaved, decorated with
semi-precious and precious stones and were of various shades. The same as now the
decoration and embroidery of the pouch matched the status of the owner. The higher
was the status, the richer was the embroidery of pouches. Peasant women would wear
leather or canvas pouches embroidered with plain wooden beads, unlike the
pouches of luxury beauties from high society who could afford gems and natural
silk for their pouches.
In
early XIX century the fashion undergone sea changes and that was impossible to wear
pouches under the skirt and bear belonging in them. And that was the time when first
women bags were launched for the wide public. It was called cabas. The
purse appeared as the embroidered pouch on the long silky rope and was assigned
to hold in hand.
There
came XX century when long tight skirts caught under the knee were thought as the
blossom of fashion for women bags. A small-sized cabas was not spacious to place
everything that a woman needed, thus the bag became larger in size. Currently the shapes, fabric and trimming of bags really impress. And
we cannot imagine our life without a single bag (if not more) even if we have enough
pockets on out clothes. By the time we have to carry more things, and our bags will
be modified and changed in size by the wave of hand of designers.
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