Well, it’s official. The terrorists have won.
In a move that began as a response to an industry-wide airline ban on carrying liquids and other concealed weapons such as waterproof eyeliner and a too-die-for shade of lipstick in anything more than a clear, zip-lock bag, designers have rolled out the newest “trend” to torture us with: transparent purses.
Yes my fearful fashion victim friends, there are purses designed of PVC with only the barest leather trim in the handles to hold it all together lest you think you actually purchased air. Talk about the Emperor’s new clothes, transparent purses are just what they seem: handbags you can see through.
I plan to rush right out and buy one … never.
Slung over the shoulder or clutched between fingers, the purse is a container that conceals a variety or personal information about its owner. It is a private space which has been designed specifically as a means for transporting the personal while out in public. The purse represents not just monetary and informational content, but also contains highly personal items; it is a time capsule which represents the owners identity, diverse interests and activities. photographs, keys, medication, makeup, ticket stubs, and identification are all hidden within its interior. The purse, in a very real way, is as unique to the owner as a fingerprint. All contents should be as private, therefore, as underwear or other unmentionables.
I know women who suffer from multiple “purse-onalaties.” They have a different purse to go with every outfit in the closet. Not me. I’m a one-purse woman. When I get a new purse, I use it till the straps fall off; so it’s essential that I find exactly the RIGHT purse. Basically I live in my car; so my purse must be a carry-all for everything I might need wherever I go no matter how long I might be gone.
Full. The contents of my purse could sustain my family for days in case of an emergency. Not only does it contain the confiscated remains of candy doled out to my children without regard for personal safety by bank tellers and kind hearted cashiers, but lipstick, nose powder, my well-used miniature first aid kit, crushed M&M’s, gum, fingernail clippers, tissues, Palm Pilot, cell phone, an electronic twenty-questions toy, a couple of hair combs, barrettes, three crayons, hand lotion, my check book, three pounds of change, enough receipts to create my own ticker-tape parade, writing instruments, and of course my micro leather man in case I need to pull a MacGyver and disengage a bomb while out and about. The purse is jam packed, heavy and very much like hauling around my own personal albatross, yet every item is necessary and the minute I remove it, I’d need it desperately.
Why in the world would I want to share my pack-rat tendencies with the world? Who wants to see everything you can imagine, with the exception of money, inside one’s purse? Honestly, people carry things in their purses that I could go to the grave happily knowing nothing about. There’s only so well I want to know my friends, let alone the lady in line behind me at Target.
Who wants to see a stylishly dressed woman brought crashing down to earth by the blatant exhibition of a purse load of nasal spray and pimple cream? Image the wide berth you’d cut if you inadvertently displayed that “embarrassing rash cream” to all and sundry? Worse yet would be the sense of betrayal when your pleas that you were picking it up for a friend fell on deaf ears.
It’s all too risky if you ask me.
Clear. What’s clear about the trend is that it won’t be taking off around my house anytime soon. Saks, Neiman Marcus, and the like have begun stocking clear PVC bags for upwards of $800 apiece, and Dolce & Gabbana has a clear plastic purse with leather straps that retail for $1,695.
That’s one THOUSAND, six HUNDRED and ninety five dollars for PLASTIC. Forget the contents ratting you out. What carrying a $1,695 plastic purse reveals to the world is that the buyer isn’t too bright.
I have a handier solution.
My local grocer gives out plastic bags with every purchase. I can just sling one of those beauties over my arm and be ready to hit the runway. Better yet, when all the transparent purse users realize they’ve been had, I can offer my “hand bag” turned trash bag to help them hide the evidence.
