Issue 24: Are You A Middle-Aged Woman Like Me?
In this very millennial episode of HANDBAGS AT DAWN, I swap TikTok for YouTube and mini purses for roomy totes while dealing with a true addiction – Trinny London.
Handbags at Dawn (@h4ndbagsatdawn) used to be a fortnightly newsletter that used to land into your inbox every other Thursday.
Hello and yes, it’s been a while. 330 days to be exact, according timeanddate.com, and I feel like I should start off with a screenshot of a Notes app apology in style of a celebrity who just got caught and cancelled for saying something inappropriate.
Not really sure why it took this long, but every time I attempted to write something, an overwhelming feeling of having nothing interesting to say engulfed my body and mind. It was reminiscent of my tweens, a period of life that saw me spend many a night guilt-tripping myself into writing nonsense into a blue, 3D-textured diary with a gold locket (gay!) as a result of learning that Emma Watson had been obsessively documenting her life in notebooks her whole life (very gay!). Fast-forward to today and I’m looking at all the fabulous people with journalistic careers, books, podcasts and newsletters, feeling like I’m trying to replicate their greatness except I have nothing remotely of note to share. Can I still call it ‘writer’s block’ if I’ve not written anything but corporate decks in almost a year? I don’t care, I will anyway. During the aforementioned (big word, maybe I am a writer after all?) writer’s block, I drafted exactly seven different versions of this newsletter. Their provisional titles/topics were as follows:
1. The aggressive TikTok bag accounts that I find really annoying – i.e. the girl who screams at the camera while unboxing ‘viral’ SSENSE orders
2. Why hasn’t Burberry ever had a true IT bag?
3. The art of a comeback – Jennifer Coolidge, a handbag, and this newsletter
4. All the bags I saw, loved and bought in South Korea
5. Monica Lewinsky’s handbag line
6. How many bags can I own before officially becoming a hoarder:?
7. A big handbag clear-out – I need to get rid of some!
Though ripe with editorial potential, shockingly none of these drafts made the final cut as I quickly ran out of words. So instead, I’d pop over to YouTube and spend hours of my non-working screen time re-watching old episodes of Drag Race (Rebecca Glasscock was robbed!), indulging in new episodes of Real Housewives (I hate tattoos but if I ever did have one it would say ‘Reality Von Teese’ in Comic Sans!), and delving into the depths of Trinny Woodall’s archives. No, you don’t understand how serious my condition got – I’m talking going as deep as watching Trinny shop in Bershka on Oxford Street in 2016 while throwing coats on the floor in a state of shopping euphoria. And right at this moment, I realised I hit rock bottom and the Internet was not for me.
But if binging years worth of Trinny programming taught me anything, it’s that white Russell & Bromley platform trainers go with everything. Well, that and the fact that I’ve become a middle aged woman eager for an on-screen makeover with an accompanying taste in bags to boot.
2023 was the year I turned 30. Apparently, it was also the year where I finally came out of the closet as a true millennial. No more delusions of Gen-Z and forcing myself into filming a TikTok that features a smooth transition of a skirt-over-trouser lewk and that quintessential moment of pulling on jeans over a pair of bulging, skimpy underwear. Suddenly, I’m not as interested in the miniature and impractical purses that can only hold *the* Fenty lip oil. Oh no. I’m looking for a bag that can fit my laptop, a packet of raw almonds from Holland & Barrett and a full bottle of Bragg Cider Vinegar so I can take a shot before every meal because that’s what Glucose Goddess told me to do. Admittedly, I’ve already had my bursts of practical energy in the past, but this one goes beyond the bag’s shape or material. It’s about the bag’s identity.
With the exception of a few anomalies acquired while intoxicated by the potential of cool youthfulness (i.e. staring at Mira Al-Momani for more than a minute), my handbag collection showed most growth in the practical department over this past year. Maybe it’s the fact that more and more friends are having babies and I feel like having space in my bag for Sophie La Giraffe as well as a collection of drooling bib was simply essential. While the TikTok youths are focused on looking like a ‘mob wife’, this Facebook almond mum is just trying to fit as many non-sugary afternoon snacks into a bag that probably once belonged to a classy wife of an East London mafioso.
Case in point is my new-but-old Louis Vuitton Noé bag in blue Épi leather. Here she is next to my desk on one of the rare occasions I actually left my house to experience what it feels like to be a Corporate Erin IRL:
Though she never had much of an interest in the Fashion part of fashion, my mum was obsessed with this bag. In fact, I vividly remember her talking about how she really wanted this exact colourway after one of her rich friends got it as a Christmas present from her rich husband along with a matching ‘Long Lady Wallet’. An LV bag was never within our family budget, but a girl could dream. And now this girl can make that girl’s dream come true. Except my mum hates vintage things because she thinks someone must have died in it so there’s no way she’d carry around a potential “dead woman’s bag.” I understand her concern, but I do not have that same concern so I wear my scratched & scuffed LV bag with pride. It’s not in the best condition – but neither am I!
A “serious business bag” isn’t just the one that fits a laptop. Oh, no! A strong middle-aged business women also loves to go out for dinners and parties. And while others carry mini clutches, she carries a sturdy, black leather shoulder bag with a thick strap and contrast leather lining from M&S. Spotted on the 55 bus via Hackney after indulging in a non-alcoholic drink at an undisclosed Central London pub location on a Thursday:
To be fair, I first spotted this bag on a very chic, very young, very fabulous work colleague during another one of my recent office ventures. Despite (or because of?) it being a totally gauche millennial move, I had to ask her where the bag was from. “It’s from M&S, a couple of seasons ago,” she whispered with a proud smirk on her face. By the time I got back to my desk I was already trawling through eBay and pinging offers equal to the amount I spent on lunch at the local sushi place. And I’d say the feeling of the supple M&S leather and the bag’s clean, minimal lines beat the sensory experience of nibbling on soggy takeaway edamame by a mile.
It might also be the Dry January (peak millennial!!!!!) doing its dark voodoo magic, but this need for pragmatism went as far as returning a metallic pink Rabanne chainmail bag after buying it on 70% off at 2am during an episode of insomnia. The weird thing is – I’m not even regretting it now. Here she is in all its glistening glory, snapped in the five minutes between opening the box and taping it back up, all while sporting my new, armpit-length Marine Serre opera gloves (très lady but make it gay):
Early 2023 me would literally pee over snagging a deal on this bag. But oh, no. Instead, I’m over there in the corner with a cup of anti-indigestion tea, bidding on Chiswick Auctions for bags that fit both of my work journals, a large Stanley cup and the copy of a well-being book that’s trying to help me be a nice(r) person.
I always used to wonder what the feeling of crossing generations felt like. When you suddenly have no idea who the Radio 1 presenters are. When you realise the only people left on your preferred social media platform are dancing mums – and then another wave of reality hits as you discover most of them are your age. When you hear ‘aesthetic’ being used as a descriptive adjective rather than a noun and a bit of sick comes up. While I’m not carrying that Long Lady Wallet in my bag just yet, I do feel like I could be one step away from falling in love with Bradley Cooper... Are Based on the state of the world, I’d say millennials are now middle-aged so welcome to my middle age – I guess this is the closest I’ll ever get to knowing what menopause feels like. BRB Trinny has some great hacks for that, too.