In the Bag: Inside Women's Handbags and My Soul

Three years ago, I was interviewed by my gay best friend for his blog. He asked me probing personal questions, and I got to feel like a star. “We hear you are moving to New York soon. Why?” “As a comedian, have you ever gotten down to business inside a comedy club?” “Do you have any STDS?” But the best question of all came when he indulged me in that time-worn celebrity profile chestnut—the Purse Peek. “Describe your purse for us and all of its contents.” I wasted no time laying out the contents of my vinyl, iridescent beige Le Sportsac: an iPod, a PalmPilot (cut me some slack--it was 2005), FACE Stockholm pale pink lipstick, Black Honey Clinique lipgloss (“a must have,” I declared), Clinique powder, protective goggles for tanning, a black Uni-Ball pen, a mod notebook from Target for my jokes, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, Aleve Gelcaps, SuperGroom nail and cuticle groomer from Blisslabs NY and Eclipse gum. I loved that Jeremy naturally knew to ask, and I naturally knew to oblige and add running commentary.

For celebrity nuts like me, a glimpse into a star’s handbag is akin to a man’s stolen glance between a woman’s thighs. If I am idly flipping through a magazine, a shot of a ritzy purse spilling its contents will stop me dead in my tracks. My pulse will quicken. I’ll look around to see if anyone notices. This is it. This is what I want. It is a peek into a full life, well-lived—and lived with shitloads of money. (Let’s not kid ourselves; a big part of this is about money.) Just like us, these are human beings with bad breath and ragged cuticles. But oh, look at what they have to take care of these imperfections! The breath mints are tucked into a $5,000 purse, and Madonna’s manicurist is on speed dial in that cellphone. These are the belongings of people who are doing something right, and so I stare at those lists of objects as if I am divining the Torah. Answers can be found inside the depths of that handbag. Why am I thirty-two years old and still not making a living at comedy? Maybe I should be more like Rebecca Romijn O’Connell and pack some extra handywipes for the airport and a Granny Smith apple in case I get hungry?

I am not alone in this obsession with handbag innards. Inside Your Handbag porn, as I call it, is something of a phenomenon. There is a seventeen year old boy in the Phillipines who runs a site, insidemyhandbag.com, where anybody can scan in an image of their bag and its contents. You can scroll through image after image of candy-colored designer bags spilling Dior lipsticks, pink cellphones, and sun tan lotion. Under each image is a simple label: Balenciaga in San Francisco, Manbag from Istanbul. Bryanboy, the “curator” of the site, says that there is no discrimination, all handbags are welcome. However, the site pretty exclusively features designer handbags loaded with pricey goodies from around the world. There is no Liz Claiborne bag from Duluth spilling Vaseline tubs and a Gap wallet.

But never fear, Liz Claiborne in Duluth, there is a place for you too in this vast handbag-exploring world. In a shopping forum on Style.com, a website owned by Vogue and W magazines, one user asked for members to detail the contents of their bags and twenty five women responded—making it one of the most popular posts. A wider array can be found on InStyle.com, where they maintain a blog entitled “In Your Bag,” where you can peek inside Celebrity and non-celebrity handbags. Ivanka Trump opened up her purple croc purse to reveal a much-used passport (two additional inserts), lip gloss and Altoids. In Style, knowing the drill, has the owner explain a few of the items. We learn that Ivanka is reading Gore Vidal because she “doesn’t like to waste time reading trash.” Please allow me to interrupt and call “bullshit!” right now. She’s not reading Gore Vidal. But she, like myself, understands that the illusion of fine literacy has its power. I got halfway through that Lolita in Tehran book and gave it a rest. But, it stayed in that purse in case someone impressively academic-looking boarded my train. Where is the truth? I don’t want the studio’s press release version of inner-purse life; I want the real thing.

For this, there is the reader comments section. Scroll down and watch America dump out her purse. “In my purse i keep LIPGLOSS, MONEY,MINTS,MY GRAY RAZR & a couple SNIKERS bars.” “In my Xhilaration bag from Target: a blood pressure monitor and medications for my allergies and hypertension.” Seriously. Now we are talking! “…my library card and an inhaler.” Inside a Degas bag, we see a bible (“Always with me”) and Fender guitar picks. Another has keys for her home and her percussion practice rooms.

Oh, Becky and your blood pressure cuff! How infinitely more interesting you are than Ivanka and her chapped, Chanelled lips. Bring on Heather, with her pot pipe and tin foil and a her ex-boyfriend’s note ripped off her Toyota Corolla. Each one of these women is her own gothic novella, some dark Nowheresville tale waiting to unfold. Oh the secrets and lies lurking in the handbags across the nation. The private sorrows and furtive dreams. Ivanka’s is nice to look at, but Tammy from Des Moines--hers has a live, beating human heart.

In the end, I need both. The celebrity bags keep me dreaming and moving forward, forever feeling incomplete. One day, I too shall carry a lucky seashell from my movie premiere at Cannes. Maybe backup designer sunglasses from a boutique in Venice. But, until then, the Duluth bags keep me grounded, in the moment and grateful for my own purse’s partially used Kleenex, waiting to collect my over-chewed gum.