There is a particular breed of luxury fashion enthusiast who is personally offended by the idea of a woman taking an expensive bag that is not technically designed to be a purse and, well, using it as a purse. Anyone turning Hermès Bride-a-Brac pouches and Bolide cosmetic cases, or Chanel makeup bags into their go-to everyday handbag. To these particular fashion enthusiasts, doing such a thing is basically committing a fashion felony.
The argument is that these products are not real handbags. That wearing a cosmetic case on your shoulder is “tacky” and that it cheapens the brand as a whole (presumably for those who can afford the usually even pricier actual bags). The Hermès Bride-a-Brac, for example, was originally designed as a wash bag or travel pouch.
It has a structured canvas body, a wide-opening zippered top, and it is perfectly suited to hold all the things women actually carry around with them: A phone, cardholder, sunglasses, keys, lip products, and whatever other miscellaneous objects that accumulate in the bottom of a purse. There is also something particularly funny about the outrage of women repurposing these bags when you consider the history of luxury handbags themselves. The Hermès Evelyne began as a grooming bag for horse equipment, designed with perforations to allow brushes to dry.
The Louis Vuitton Noé was originally created to carry bottles of champagne. These are now some of the most recognizable luxury bags in the world. Even the mythology surrounding the Birkin has always been rooted in the idea of a bag that is meant to be lived in.
Jane Birkin largely saw the staple piece as an everyday work bag meant to be heavily used and filled to the brim. The original vision was not necessarily some precious object to be locked away in a dust bag and admired from across the bedroom. So it actually makes perfect sense for people to use their makeup bags as purses, if they so please.
This idea that people shouldn’t do this because it’s “tacky” quickly reveals the class politics hiding underneath so much of the fashion industry. Luxury has become wrapped up in exclusivity that people have started treating the products themselves as elitist identifiers. Owning the right bag, wearing the right logo, and knowing the unwritten rules of fashion are all supposedly proof that you belong to a certain world.
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