Hah, I gathered (aka, solicited) pictures for this little thing a long time ago and never got around to doing it. But why not? This was born of a little parlor game I whipped out at a boring dinner party with aunties. I told an aunty that I didn’t know very well that I could get a pretty good handle on her personality just by looking at her bag. When I was able to do just that, she was tickled and then the other aunties wanted me to do the same with theirs.
So I figured, let’s keep it going and do the same with others, just for fun, and see how close I can get to pinpointing aspects of that person’s life or personality.
The first person to send me a picture was @meaggiepie from Twitter. Here is her bag. I shall attempt to dissect it.
Things I notice about this bag:
- It’s leather. Leather is a strong, durable material. A bag made of leather (provided it’s stitched well, obviously) can hold a lot and stand up to a lot. That tells me that this is a woman that has a lot to do and a lot of movement in her life. This bag carries her essentials – all of them, even the inessential essentials – so she can keep moving.
- It’s brown. Brown is a neutral color, like taupe or grey or even in some contexts, black. That means it goes with just about everything. This is a bag that can be worn with a suit and with jeans and with a fun skirt. It multi-tasks and fits well with the busy lifestyle of its owner, who might have to run from court to the office to a PTA meeting to a coffee date with a friend. It’s an all-purpose bag that can be paired with different outfits and different colors, for the woman who might not want to waste too much of her time painstakingly coordinating things.
- The hardware. Look at those big gold hoops! And the studs! (I think they’re gold. They look gold.) This bag’s owner has some edge to her. Studs serve no functional purpose: they’re there to attract attention and be edgy and tough. There’s something very tough about this lady (this is cheating, because I know that @meaggiepie is a kick-ass lady lawyer). Also, the gold adds flash and interest – this is a woman with some flair. I feel like she’s the kind of woman that maintains eye contact with the cute barista at the coffee shop for just a few seconds longer than normal. A confident, serious, busy woman who’s mostly tough and just a little unexpectedly flirty.
- The side pocket – and that it bulges. Pockets on the outside of purses always interest me. I don’t think I own a single purse that has a pocket on the outside. I have one that has a little, flat, more-of-an-insert-than-a-pocket thing, but that’s for those key cards at office buildings so you can just hold your purse up to the scanner without rooting around for the card to swipe over the pad. But I have no purses that have an extra, actual pocket with zips or buttons on the outside, and on the front, no less.This makes me think that this woman has people in her life that need special access to her – or her bag. I can’t recall if @meaggiepie has children or not. I follow so many great female lawyers on Twitter and sometimes I forget who’s a lady-lawyer and who’s a mommy-lawyer. So I might guess that she has children, in which case this pocket might hold her phone, some tissues to wipe runny noses, a pacifier if she has a particularly young child, or a small baggie of snacks, maybe? You know, certain kid-items to keep them clean and/or entertained. Things that a kid would need or expect, placed in a pocket that the child could easily reach on its own without having to bother Mom while she’s on the phone or talking to someone face to face. Just reach in there, grab the fruit snacks, and Mom won’t even care and probably won’t even notice.
If, on the other hand, @meaggiepie doesn’t have children, I would guess that she has underlings. Which are kind of like children, yes? She has people, perhaps on her staff, that need constant access to her. Whether that means that she has to keep a little thing of post-it notes in there to keep passing them notes or mini-memos about things she needs them to do, or whether that means that she needs to keep her work phone in there, separate from her normal phone, so they can always get through to her, whatever. All I know is that the odds are, with that pocket placed like that, the kind of woman that would buy this bag is the woman that needs to stay connected to a certain group of people most of the time, whether that’s babies or the people that work for her. (Or people that she works for, I guess, if we’re talking work phones. And really, that pocket looks like it could hold your Blackberry AND something else.)
- The size. This isn’t a clutch. This isn’t a sleek little handbag. This isn’t a slim tote. This is a bag that can contain quite a lot. I see a phone, maybe two, maybe a little notebook to jot things down on (maybe it can hold files – I can’t get a sense of how tall it is), lots of pens and pencils, some basic makeup items, a little thing of perfume, a hair brush, maybe a travel thing of face cream, a pack of tissues, a little thing of lotion perhaps, a snackie bag, an iPod for a quick gym run, and maybe even some reading material for the commute or just a spare moment during the day when waiting somewhere.
The judgment: This is a woman that has a lot of places to go and a full, busy life. She likes to be prepared and take all necessary precautions. She’s tough and ballsy and knows what she’s doing, but there’s a twinkle in her eye even when she glares at you. The corner of her mouth twitches with a restrained smirk even if she’s trying to be serious. If you need something, she’ll probably be able to help you, and she’s turned multi-tasking into an art form. She’s on the move but always tries to be present, in the situation, in the moment, if that makes sense.
Welp, only @meaggiepie can judge how well I scored in my assessment of her based on this bag. I’ll update with her reply if she sends me one. :D Then you can all mock me when it turns out that I’m WAY off base. It’ll be just another day around this here old blog.
Edit: @meaggiepie responded! Here’s what she had to say.
