Release time: 2024-07-24 12:18:40
Margaret Thatcher, who wielded a ladylike handbag at all times, in 1975.Credit...Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images
Fashion loves a ginormous bag, and there were lots of them on the runways at the recent spring 2025 shows — Ferragamo, Khaite, Proenza Schouler and Dries Van Noten, among others. But power players? Not so much.
Indeed, you could say there is an inverse relationship between handbags and authority. The truth is, the bigger the job, the smaller the handbag — if a handbag comes into play at all.
Think about it. The last female world leader to make handbags part of her signature was Margaret Thatcher, who turned her structured box bags into a personal totem, like her pussy-bow blouses. (She often carried Launer bags, also a favorite of Queen Elizabeth II.) Since then, it has been hard to think of a female head of state with a handbag.
(To be fair, it’s hard to think of a head of state of any gender with a bag, which is the point.)
You never saw Hillary Clinton carrying one. Kamala Harris is never pictured with a purse. Images of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s newly elected and first female president, don’t include a handbag. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, doesn’t appear to tote them.
And it’s not just politics. Anna Wintour never takes her front row seat with a bag; the sole accessory she carries during the collections is her phone. There are no pictures of Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, who was recently crowned the most powerful woman in business by Fortune, with a bag.
So what gives?
A few things. There is a human tendency to fill up space that is available. Maybe it has something to do with our hunter-gatherer past; maybe it’s a just-in-case/be-prepared-for-anything mind-set. (Mothers who are still discovering gummy snack packs in their bags years after their children are grown will understand.)
Generally, the bigger the bag, the more space you have, the more you will stuff into it: water, wallets, pens, wet wipes, notebooks, extra batteries … This creates a situation in which you are toting around a giant lump of a thing that gets in the way and is bad for your posture. Not to mention that it puts the bag-person in the position of someone who serves other people, rather than someone being served.
Carrying a smaller bag demands choices and selectivity. Thus, “Succession” and Tom’s extremely snobby but trenchant point. Not carrying a bag at all is, in many ways, a sign of success. It suggests that you have other people to deal with the schlepping. It suggests that you can leave all of that stuff in the car or at the office. It suggests focus on the tasks at hand. It suggests liberation and efficiency. It’s a power flex.
And at the very least, it’s better for your back.
