Fifty Bags That Changed the World

Design Museum Fifty

by Design Museum

Fifty Bags That Changed the World focuses on one of the essential accessories that power the fashion world today - the handbag. From the original 1860 attaché case to Matthew Williamson's 2010 Pucci Bean clutch, the book explores the top 50 handbags and backpacks, examining each one's iconic status in design history.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2011

About the author

Design Museum is a museum founded in 1989, located by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in central London, England. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. In 2007 the museum was listed by The Times newspaper as number two in their top five museums of the year.

Deyan Sudjic is the current Director of the museum. He succeeded Alice Rawsthorn in 2006. Unlike most large London museums, the entrance is not free, as it is not subsidised by the UK Arts Council. For this reason it operates as a registered charity, and all funds generated by ticket sales aid the museum in putting new exhibitions together. The museum attracts 200,000 visitors annually.


Source: Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Ligaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that answered several questions for me, like what does the 2.55 mean for the Chanel bag. It also made me think, why is xxx bag iconic (the rainboot bag) and why have I never heard of all these others? Then some others seemed redundant, like the newsboy bag/messenger bag/Timbuk2 stuff. I wish there were more photos, especially when the text makes reference to another bag, but the writing is concise. An easy, quick read.

[Ida Hansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a lot of information

Do I need someone to tell me that the plastic bag and different military bags over the years have been used a lot? Not really. I study handbag design, and this gave me almost 0 new knowledge. Not deep enough to matter for any of the bags.

[Anna L · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a quick little book to browse... but selection of bags for inclusion is rather baffling, especially moving into more modern times. Perhaps the author should have stuck to those bags that truly proved their worth over the years or had limited its selection to 10-20 bags (but then it would have been a magazine article and not a book).

[Awjtf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read, and why each was chosen.

[Sue Online · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was wandering through a Toronto store recently, called Lavish & Squalor, drooling at the amazing things. From ornamental hand carved steer’s skulls with silver horns to old hand plows turned into book cases, it was my little slice of heaven. And then… I saw it. A Pendleton wool bag. THIS Pendleton wool bag.



I wanted it. I wanted it a lot. I wanted to buy it for every single one of the women in my cancer support group. An amazing, beautiful weekender bag, perfect for hospital stays or getting away from it all. But at $400 per bag and a dozen women, let’s just say, it sucks to be me sometimes.

So instead I thought, can I make a bag I love as much? Well, didn’t that get me going… You see, I’m not really a bag person. Sure I like bags, I use them sometimes, but, well, it’s not like I have a purse. Could I make a bag for myself like that?

Cue the obsession.

Sure, with some classes and patterns and whatnot, I could make some kind of approximation of that bag. Making a bag is a GREAT idea . So I looked into sewing classes. Learning how to sew again after 35 years of not touching a machine, yep, you got it. Thread a needle? Sure I know how. Except, oh yeah, I have to use a magnifying glass at work sometimes just to see what’s written on the page before me. Did I mention that it sucks to be me sometimes?

But I started reading about bags. After all, how can I sew bags if I don’t know bags? This is the first bag book I’ve finished, and it has reaffirmed what I knew deep down in my heart.

I am a bag person.

That I don’t have an everyday bag is simply because the bags I do have are so special, I use them on special occasions only.

I have a hand-crafted heavy leather school bag from a bygone era. I love it so much I painted its portrait.

My black nylon “Run for the Cure” bag was given to me by a man I sponsored in a charity run. He won the bag for getting the most sponsors and I was his biggest supporter. I could go on, but I will leave the bag stories for another time.

Except, well, Fifty Bags that Changed the World, it’s about those kinds of bags. I paraphrase the author when I say,

Finally, a bag is emotion-laden it can be deeply expressive of a person’s life – serving as a companion, a receptacle of secrets, a status object and a means of self-display.

Fifty Bags that Changed the World is a monument to the emotional bag[gage] we carry around, willingly. From the patent for plastic shopping bags to the Gladstone’s Budget Box, from the Mulberry Alexa bag to the Coco Chanel 2.55 bag, the book offers 50 bag-type objects (a lunchbox? Really? Okay…) and contextualizes their importance into both ordinary and extraordinary life.

Learning about bags is outside my comfort zone. It’s delving into a part of myself hidden from the constant light of self-consideration. And I am loving it.

[Am Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could've been much better.

The front part of the book I really liked - we get to learn the history behind some well-known bag styles today (e.g. the plastic bag, schoolboy satchel, newspaper boy bag, saddlebag, etc) and discover how these bags morphed to become their modern-day counterparts.

But towards the middle of the book all the way to the end, the book started featuring bags I'd never heard of in my life. How those bags "changed the world" is a mystery to me, since no one I know (I asked my family & friends) had ever heard of or seen those bags before either. Some of them were very recent designs. I suspect the author thinks those bags may have had more far-reaching influence than their ad campaigns actually produced.

Still, I'm a big fan of the "Fifty ___ That Changed The World" series. The paper quality is always excellent, the text always succinct and easy to read, and the photos always good.

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, the history of the handbag.Yes, I do admit to a certain amount of lust and greed. It is also interesting what changes have taken over the years in terms of untilitarian vs fashion to anti-functional. The book is small and lovely, and it's only fault is that it spend too much time on its scope.the past 15 years and is not more even-handed with

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining survey of purses through history- mostly of the past century.