It's in the bag

Beaded bags are currently on display at Objectspace. Photo / Babiche Martens

Paul Orsman's personality is a mix of the orderly and extraordinary. As the librarian for the College of Creative Arts at Massey University's Wellington campus, his brain is attuned to archival systems - but his heart beats faster when it registers aesthetic beauty. Paul's forte is foliar storage: a place for everything and everything in its place.

At home, it's much the same. His apartment is a depot of decorative finds. "I'm a catholic collector," he laughs. "I collect up to 20 different things at any one time." Beaded fancywork bags are just one passion. These are stored in boxes, carefully wrapped in acid-free tissue paper - a delicate homage to handicraft past.

"I love their colours and the effort that has gone into making them," says Paul whose collection at its peak was around 300 bags.

He has since whittled them down by half. "As I get older, material things mean less to me," he explains.

He believes he inherited his hoarding instinct from his maternal grandmother. She lived in a little house at the bottom of the garden of his parents' Chapman-Taylor home in Khandallah.

Her young grandson would head down to Grandma's place and help clean the brass and silver while she tempered the task with anecdotes about the pieces - the people and the places of their providence. "I fell in love with her stories."

Paul began collecting in the 1960s. "I bought a miniature silver tea service from a dolls' house for two guineas," he recalls. And he still remembers the first fancywork bag he purchased in 1974 when a Latvian refugee who had brought a 1930s bag on the ship over with him, answered an advert for unwanted "bric-a-brac" Paul had placed in the local paper.

The Victorian and Art Deco bags on display at Ponsonby Rd's Objectspace gallery are fine examples from Paul's collection and tell a story of a changing world.

In the evenings, Victorian ladies of a genteel nature embroidered and beaded bags. It was a time when needle skills and propriety were particularly valued: the bags feature subtle colours and dainty beads. In fact, beaded bags from the middle of the 19th century were often clustered with up to 1000 beads per square inch.

One can only imagine the patience required and the finger-wearying intricacy of the skill. These purses or drawstring bags (often called a reticule) hung elegantly from the wrist or attached to a belt.

They were smaller than their Art Deco counterparts; the fact is that women of that era had very little to put in them.

By the 1920s however, the fairer sex had taken to smoking and discovered the cosmetic advantage, so their bags needed more room and substance.

The brighter, more exuberant, styles of the Art Deco period also caught Paul's eye. "Many bags had carved or etched Bakelite handles," he says, "and a fancy chain-link attachment."

In both eras, travel is a recurring theme. Tall ships, exotic parrots, Egyptian motifs and scenes of Venice abound. Whether the owners had actually visited these faraway lands, or the designs were just some fanciful imaginings, is impossible to tell.

But bag hunting was a regular part of Paul's travels. On frequent trips to London, Paris and Sydney he would haunt the antiquarian markets. His favourite and most expensive bag, a vibrant petalled example, was discovered on one such an occasion at a Bond St stall.

"I've always loved florals so I just had to have it." Paul paid three hundred pounds for it in the late 80s.

"That was when beaded bags were popular. They are somewhat out of vogue now."

Paul says because 50s and 60s retro gear is on the rise, you can pick bags up at auction for between $100 and $200.

Victorian Gilt in Remuera prices them from $150 to $650 and you can sometimes nab a bargain on sites such as Trade Me.

But, Paul cautions, make the effort to see the bags first-hand before you buy as any damage will be almost impossible to repair.

Although the bags are highly impractical except for display purposes, decades later, Paul still finds their fragile charm irresistible. "They are works of art that sing to you," he says. And going for a song, perhaps?

* A selection of Paul Orsman's beaded fancywork bags is currently on show at the Objectspace Gallery on Ponsonby Road. The exhibition focuses on Victorian era and Art Deco bags and runs until 18 July.