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Handbag
Unknown - Enlarge image
Handbag
- Place of origin:
Great Britain, United Kingdom (made)
- Date:
1889 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Leather, crocodile and kidskin, with chrome fittings
- Credit Line:
Given by A. Weingott
- Museum number:
T.61-1956
- Gallery location:
Fashion, room 40, case CA6
The term 'handbag' first referred to the hand-held luggage bags usually carried by men, but in the latter part of the nineteenth century practical and stylistic elements of the leather travelling bag, such as its metal fastenings and compartmentalised interior, ticket pockets and sturdy handle, inspired the new handbag for women, the precursor of the twentieth-century handbag. The very small leather handbags of the late nineteenth century, while extremely small, still alluded to the details of hand luggage with its pockets, complicated fastenings, locks and tiny keys.
