When I was just hitting adolescence, in the early 1980s, I was fascinated by the ads in magazines like Seventeen and Dolly for Glomesh handbags (at least I think that’s what they were for, sandwiched between Brooke Shields spruiking Love’s Baby Soft fragrance, and girls with shiny hair exclaiming ‘gee your hair smells terrific’). They featured a celebrity, and the contents of their bag spread out with little explanations for everyone to read. I remember Cheryl Ladd being one of them, and at the time she was my favourite Angel.
It appealed to the voyeur in me.
For years I’ve wanted to work on a project where people reveal the contents of their bags in some artistic way, but none of my bosses have ever been interested enough.
So now it’s my turn. Take a look into my mundane everyday via the contents of my lovely cherry red Glamourpuss handbag.
It all begins fairly innocently:
But dig a little deeper and the horror really begins:
I’m in a listing state of mind today, having cleaned out my pantry and pasted a list of its contents, shelf by shelf inside its door, so here we go.
- six pens
- five bobby pins
- dummy in cover
- ziplock bag
- ziplock bag containing cuttings from Edie’s first haircut at the hairdresser, from August
- button badge for the program
- note from Bim from pre-kids days
- ziplock bag containing three old wafer biscuits left over from an outing with Edie to the Penrith Regional Gallery. I took her there in the early days with Jude so we could have some one-on-one time. We had a great morning out, the gardens are really beautiful and it’s very well set up for children.
- napkin, used for blotting lipstick
- hairbands
- seven chemist receipts
- four medicare receipts
- two Bilo receipts
- 11 IGA receipts
- bookshop receipt
- unidentifiable raffle ticket
- Coles brochure
- paintbrush
- two Target receipts
- Coles receipt
- pink plastic spoon
- four elastoplast
- address of the Dental Centre
- QV lip balm
- hotel sewing kit
- Vaseline lip balm
- chocolate almond
- bank receipt
- Chooks Galore receipt
- Radiology receipt
- two Liquorland receipts
- two Toys R Us receipts
- two Pots Avenue receipts
- hanky for mopping up baby spills
- two notepads because I lost one in the bottom of this bag
- dental quote and receipt
- two post office receipts
- two winning scratchies
- ABC shop receipt
- Bunnings receipt
- doctor appointment cards
- business cards
- membership cards
- emery board
- a silver star that was awarded to me last time I went to Weight Watchers, for losing ten kilograms
- library receipt
- unfranked 50c stamp with a pregnant woman on it, used by my grandmother on a card for me last year when I was pregnant
- outdoor shop receipt (thermals for Bim)
- rubber band
- hotel matches from the Quay Grand (last hurrah before kids)
- Coles gift voucher (a peace offering for some moudly bagels)
- Office Choice receipt
- stamps
- rattle
- lolly pop (note these items for keeping children busy and / or quiet)
- marble
- King of Knives receipt
- bulldog clip
- change
- my purse, which I dare not clean out for fear of boring even myself.
I'm a mountains-dwelling, working from home, small-business-running, gym-loving mother of two. I love to write. But I'm slack.
I am a huge fan of the handbag reveal… especially the unintentional kind… Do you recall that picture of Britney Spears rushing to retrieve a bottle of diet pills after they fell from her bag? and who could forget the disastrous handbag spill (was it in Chanel?) suffered by Carrie in one of the last episode’s of Sex and the City?
While waiting at the Dentist the other day I was reading a mag that had a celebrity handbag reveal similar to the one that you described. I was really getting into it until I realised that all the celebrities listed a particular brand of personal organiser. I did begin to wonder whether the whole thing was just a clever promotion for this particular brand and sure enough the same brand of organiser was listed in the magazine’s “must have” section a few pages further in.
So, next time you publish a list of what’s in your handbag you might consider some endorsement deals!
but what have you done with the contents now? is there a list taped to the inside of your handbag, and all those receipts — good lord, those receipts! — neatly filed into a pocket?
yes! handbag reveal good! amber, what’s in yours?
Ah, an endorsement deal? What an exciting prospect — Happy Baby Soothers, Multix Zip Lock Bags….hmmm, I can see a whole range of ‘keep the kids quiet so Mum can have a conversation’ items coming together here.
Oh, poor Britney, I remember it well, and I was fascinated. Always am (not with Britney, well, maybe a little tiny bit).
I remember Maggie Alderson once writing in her column about totally cleaning out her handbags after each trip to overseas fashion shows, wiping them, putting them away for next time, and I felt sort of sad because I find the archeaological dig through my past very illuminating when I get out a bag I haven’t used in a while.
bowb – yes, the receipts are filed, sort of, but no list. Yet. As for the rest, it went into various drawers, waiting to be sorted and listed…
I just cleaned out my bag a couple of weeks ago so it’s pretty empty and has no mouldy sandwiches in it anymore. It does have:
- Referral for an OPG xray for my dentist
-box of tic tacs
- pair of children’s scissprs
- one plastic knife
- zoo friends membership card
- aqua club (aquarium) membership card
- infancy (baby shop) privilege card
- three old shopping lists
- receipt from chemist (antibiotics for infected tooth)
- appointment card from dentist
- Half eaten packet of m&m’s. I didn’t realise I had these, otherwise they would have been eaten days ago!
- five cents
Now that tells you a story! Chocoholic and sugarphile cannot stop destroying her own teeth – spends all her money on sweets and trips to dentist. As a result has only five cents to name.
Bowb! Your go!!!!!
Stop Press: Sweet shop held up by sugar-crazed mother wielding children’s scissors and plastic knife. Mother pleads – I was just trying to finance my dental costs.
ah hah! the thing is, i did go through my backpack and take an inventory, and wrote it all down on a list, and then lost the list, and oh how funny it would have been if the list actually surfaced later in the backpack… but no. it was just in a pile of papers on a sidetable (next, i make a list of al the pieces of paper on my table). so.
- half a bag of by-now sodden apple chips
- HMV receipt (hot hot heat)
- chinese grocery receipt (assorted pocky)
- flier from bank
- fruit shop receipt
- paper sleeve from a straw
- diary
- red ballpoint pen
- black roller ball pen
- two lucky red envelopes with money inside (alas they are maeve’s)
- spare pair of spectacles
- plastic spoon
- two pastic fish of soy sauce
- wipes
- bib
- four serviettes
- makeup case (contents: 3 lip balms, the last inch in a tube of handcream, one tampon, a wad of tissues)
- diary
- wallet
- card wallet (just wait till you see what’s in there)
- $7.95 in loose change
truly, i was surprised by some of it.