What your messy (or tidy) handbag says about you

According to big fashion houses (and Jane Birkin), bag chaos is nothing to feel bad about.

Two half-packs of chewing gum. One iPhone charger cable. One sample tube of sunscreen. Five plasters. One packet of tissues. Glasses case (empty). Two lipsticks. One pen. Four receipts. Yes, there’s more (house keys!), but even this partial inventory should convey a sense of the mayhem that reigns over my handbags.

It’s always been this way. In the past, I might have hesitated to confess to handbag chaos, wondering what it suggests about my state of mind. But now I know that being a member of Team Messy Bag isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Not when it’s one of the season’s key trends.

Consider the Miu Miu spring-summer 2024 catwalk, where models carried unzipped bags that spilled over with high heels, knickers, folded jeans and lanyards. At Bottega Veneta, rolled-up blueprints protruded from oversized Intrecciato totes, and at Balenciaga, worn-in shoulder bags clacked with keychains and assorted tassels. Away from the fashion runways in New York, Irina Shayk managed to fit everything she needed, plus her dog, into her heaving black croc Birkin.

The woman most likely to be mistaken for Mary Poppins based on the neverending contents of her Chanel tote, however, has to be Coleen Rooney. In a new British Vogue video (below), Rooney pulled a pack of water wipes, balled-up Pilates socks, a full-size bottle of her favourite Prada perfume, a pencil case, a paper diary… and a second Chanel handbag out of her ludicrously, capacious tote. “If I could trade bags with someone for the day,” she says, “it would be the Princess of Wales. Just to see if she carries as much s*** as I do.”

There are ample reasons for women to carry the world in our handbags. Preparedness, for one thing. “I always have an emergency Compeed in my bag, and often a thermal vest for an unexpected cold front,” influencer talent agent Lucy Owen tells me. Multi-hyphenate lives and packed schedules lead to the accretion of handbag ephemera. Often it’s useful stuff — the sort that means our bags can serve as portable beauty counters, chemists and snack bars, all in one.

“People carry things I would never think of,” says Zofia Chylak, founder of handbag and shoe brand Chylak. “I remember somebody telling me how great a bag I designed was because even though it was rather small it fit their hairdryer.”

But for every hairdryer-toting member of Team Messy, there’s another woman on Team Tidy. “I like to have a place for everything and have everything in its place,” says Zoe Colegrave, Smythson’s chief commercial officer. Day to day, she uses a small bag “to avoid accumulating clutter. Practicality is a must, so I like multi-compartment bags that give my keys, phones, card holder, lip salve and perfume a home of their own.”

“It’s a functional need. Look, our bags are our mobile offices. Our lives are busier, more dynamic and more complicated than ever before. Not being organised creates a lot more stress than people realise.”

Morris swears by a bag-within-a-bag system. Her Stowaway, a slim crossbody bag that clips inside Metier’s larger designs — like the Private Eye and Perriand — is her constant companion, whether slung over her shoulder or snapped into a roomier model. “I actually needed to develop this for myself, to keep myself organised so that I can be on the go as much as I am.”

It helps that they’re terrific-looking, when so many bags designed to promote organisation resemble corporate-issue carry-ons. (Few women, when presented with a sheeny nylon laptop bag with compartments for everything needed for a workday, would choose the practical option over, say, a Celine bucket.)

This paradox – that the handbags we desire can be impractical to the point of irritation — inspired Helga Meersmans and Ine Verhaert to launch Kaai. Designs from the Antwerp-based bag brand feature specific pockets for everything a woman needs. Work totes like the pyramid and helix include inner pockets for glasses, charger cables, pens, water bottles and more, and reinforced side slots fit laptops or tablets, without ever veering into laptop-bag territory.

“A tidy bag means that your most important objects – keys, glasses, phone – are findable immediately,” says Meersmans, who spent years commuting between Antwerp and London every week. Once, she spent so long searching for her house keys that she nearly missed her flight. “It’s much more restful to be Team Tidy. Certainly for those who are professionally active, it’s a necessity.”

Today she recommends keeping a phone and a couple of credit cards in a small pouch to move from bag to bag. That, and always placing items in the same pocket: “If you know that your phone always goes in the front on the left, your glasses go in the front on the right, and so on, and you check your bag, and there’s a pocket empty, you immediately know what’s missing.”

When I asked women if they considered themselves Team Tidy or Team Messy, the idea of being meticulous in every area but handbag organisation arose again and again. “I’m Team Tidy with 99 per cent of everything I do,” says Elle King, co-founder and design director of faux flower brand Ett Hem London. “But when it comes to the inside of my handbag, it’s absolute chaos,” she says.

“The contents of a person’s handbag are a very private thing. They’re usually concealed and only serve us,” says Dr Dion Terrelonge (@thefashionpsychologist). “The messy-bag trend could be part of the broader move away from overly curated materials and toward authenticity — we’re not hiding as much anymore.”

Maybe the messy bag is the new fair-condition bag, conveying a certain lack of preciousness with belongings. Maybe it signals that we’re too busy for anything more than a chuck-it-all-in approach. Anyway, a messy bag can have its perks. “It’s the best feeling to discover something useful at the bottom of your bag that you didn’t know you had,” says Isabella Bowie, founder of IZIE shoes. “Paracetamol, plasters, mints, a hair clip — if I find something I need, I feel a sense of achievement.”

Long live Team Messy.

This story was originally published in The Daily Telegraph.

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