FASHION HANDBAGS, LADIES FASHIONS HAND BAGS
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Fashion handbags, ladies fashions hand bags, latest women's accessories, jewellery purses and designer handbags.
HISTORY OF HANDBAGS Over the centuries, women and handbags have been together like bees and honey. Ladies always seem to possess a handbag of some sort or other wherever they go and the latest surveys (63% of women), suggests that a women's love for her handbag is so strong that even in a situation where there is a fire, the one item she would save whilst evacuating would be her handbag. Handbags have been one of the necessities of life for women ever since recorded history. It was important to have the items that one used often close at hand and articles found in a handbag have ranged from ornate sewing scissors (17th century) to today's mandatory cell phone and credit cards. The ways in which humans have carried themselves and their belongings throughout history have reflected the eras in which they lived in. The very first handbags were literally crude pouches fashioned from animal hide and leaves. The first ever documented use of handbags came from the 14th century Egyptian hieroglyphics which depict men carrying small pouches near their waist. These very crude fashioned handbags were hung by thongs at the back of the girdle, which were used mainly by men to carry money and flint. In some cases embroidery and jewelry adorned the bags and were used to show a persons status in life, needles to say that these fragile bags were not very practical, although the mentality was that if you could afford those handbags, you could afford a servant to carry your things for you. A purse is essentially a pouch, and pouches have been used by men and women for as long as records existed. Even peasants in rural societies used bags to carry seeds for planting. In the 16th century, handbags took on more of an air of practicality with the use of everyday materials such as leather with a drawstring fastener on top. During this period, cloth bags were used that were made larger and used by travelers and carried diagonally across the body. Then it became fashionable for women to wear their handbags under their skirts, and handbags literally disappeared for several decades with little development in design. It was only in the 1800's that handbags reemerged. It was no longer fashionable to wear puffed skirts, and the streamlined clothes made it impractical to wear bulky handbags. This is where the development of the "real" handbags that were held in the hand and complemented clothing came into being. From here on this is when women started mixing different handbags to suit different occasions, whilst using their bags to carry an assortment of fashion accessories like perfume, fans, smelling salts and visiting cards. Funny enough handbags weren't called handbags at all but were actually referred to as "reticules". Modern handbags |
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