What makes a good handbag?

by Tim Brown

As bloke I'm singularly under-qualified to write about what makes a good handbag. As I've mentioned before in an earlier article, us blokes are content to merely stuff our pockets with the junk we need to carry with us. Wallet, keys, mobile phone can all be jammed into our jeans pockets - there's no need for hand luggage. We might end up looking somewhat lumpy but so what?

This used to be my attitude until I was converted. No, I haven't taken to carrying round sparkly, sequinned handbags and dressing like a Dame Edna Everage tribute act. Mores the pity. No, I've been subtly converted to the benefits of the manbag.

It started simply enough with the purchase of a cheap(ish) Oakley monostrap rucksack to carry around my every increasing pile of Blackberrys, MP3 players and various other bits and pieces of paraphernalia that are an intrinsic part of the modern world.

Enticed by the convenience of carrying a useful bag I then moved on to more exotic purchases, including a lovely leather Viconti manbag which smelt delicious and looked great. I knew, however, that I had reached my peak when I found myself in Bloomingdales in New York buying an absolutely gorgeous Jack Spade limited edition messenger bag. Lovely!

Anyway, my descent into the madness of bag purchase and ownership has now given me a previously unseen insight into the heady world of bags. So when Katie asked me to write an article about what makes a good handbag, I felt I was able to answer truthfully based on my now huge experience.

In my view, being a bloke, the first and foremost importance in a bag is its practicality. We all need to carry stuff about, so there's just no point in having an insane bag in the shape of a Highland Cow or one so tiny you can't even cram in a small lipbalm.

Secondly, it's got to be rare. One of the main reasons I abandoned the Visconti bag and invested in the Jack Spade was that, to my horror, I saw someone else on my morning bus with a Visconti bag just like mine! That morning I stumbled off the bus, half blind with a mixture of shock and disappointment. I could never use the Visconti again.

Finally, it's just got to look cool. If we intrinsically didn't want to own and use funky bags we would just simply carry round our stuff in used supermarket plastic bags. But we don't (well, some people do - but we ignore them).

So there we have it, a good bag is practical, rare and cool. But - horrifyingly - I think I glimpsed someone on the train this morning with a Jack Spade bag like mine. I have to convince Katie to add manbags to her range. And quickly!

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Tim is an occasional contributor of whimsical articles to stripykat. For more articles check out the article index.