Types of Handbags
As a fashion accessory, handbags can be categorized according to the silhouette of the bag, as well as the type of handle. The current popular handbag silhouettes are (as of 2011):
- Baguette: a small, narrow, rectangular shape purse, resembling a French loaf of bread (baguette)
- Barrel: shaped like a barrel or closed tube, usually with shoulder-length straps
- Bowling bag purse: a popular 1990s "retro" style for younger women, modelled after American bags used to carry bowling balls
- Bucket bag: shaped like a bucket, medium-size or large, with shoulder straps and a drawstring closure
- Clutch: a handbag without handles, rectangular in shape, often an evening bag but used during the day as well
- Doctor's bag: modelled after a Victorian era doctor's bag for making housecalls
- Drawstring: a purse that closes with a drawstring at the top, may have wrist- or shoulder-length straps, popular as an evening bag style
- Half-moon: shaped as a half-moon
- Hobo: medium-size crescent-shaped bag with a top zipper and often a slouch or dip in the centre; a modern, casual silhouette
- Lighted: a handbag with a lighting system which has been attempted since the 1950s without success until recently when in 2011 the first successful lighted handbag was brought to market.
- Messenger bag: one long strap worn across the body, inspired by bags worn by urban messengers to deliver business mail, a modern silhouette
- Minaudière: a small rectangular evening bag, usually hard-bodied, sometimes held inside a soft fabric bag that serves as a sleeve
- Muff: a winter bag made of real or faux fur, wool or velvet that has zippered compartments and a slip opening for hands
- Pocketbook: small purse, rectangular shape
- Pouch: small bag such as a pocket, teabag, money bag, sporran, etc
- Saddle purse: shaped like a horse saddle, may have equestrian motifs and hardware to emphasize the design
- Satchel: a soft-sided case usually of leather
- Tote: medium to large bag with two straps and an open top
- Trapezoid: shaped as a trapezoid, usually made of stiff material
Read more about this topic: Handbag
Famous quotes containing the words types of and/or types:
“Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one other—only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.”
—Talcott Parsons (1902–1979)
“As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn’t make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting—the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.”
—Saul Bellow (b. 1915)