Listicles    National Handbag Day

10 Reasons Bags are Totally Worth Celebrating on National Handbag Day

Happy National Handbag Day! We founded this day four years ago to celebrate not just bags, but also you, our readers, who visit us every day and make our jobs so fun. We love discussing fashion with you and feel lucky to have built a community full of such knowledgable, dedicated, kind women (and even a few people who aren’t women!) over PurseBlog’s decade-plus lifespan.

You know as well as we do that not everyone gets the whole handbag thing, though, which is why we thought it’d be a good idea to enumerate some of the reasons we hold them so near and dear to our hearts. Add your own in the comments!

1. They’re where fashion meets function

Most things in fashion are impractical: ball gowns, sky-high heels, anything trimmed in fur or feathers or intended to be worn to specific types of parties. Bags, on the other hand, combine the luxury of those ideas with the necessity of everyday use and practicality, which makes them a special place where high-end fashion meets real life.

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2. They’re your own personal Walgreens

Mints, Tums, hair ties (in addition to the one on your wrist), bobby pins, four lipsticks, the nail polish you brought to your most recent pedicure, Band-Aids, a Kind bar, ibuprofen, a Tide pen–the list of what’s bopping around in the bottom of your everyday bag is probably endless. A good bag, no matter what it looks like or how much you paid for it, is like your own personal pharmacy and tool kit. Forget the Boy Scouts; it’s women who are always prepared.

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3. Relative to other fashion pieces, they’re a good value

If you spent $2,000 on a gorgeous cocktail dress and wore it three days, people would start to worry you were living out of your car in order to buy the occasional designer frock. If you spend the same amount of money on a bag, you can use it literally every day for years, and not only would people not judge you for it, but your great bag would simply become one of your aesthetic signatures.

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4. You might be buying a family heirloom

Not all bags are going to stand the test of time when it comes to giving them to your daughters or granddaughters (and not all of them need to!), but classics like the Chanel Classic Flap, Christian Dior Lady Dior and nearly anything Hermès makes are safe bets to pass on to the next generation. Plus, since they’re bags, you don’t have to worry about the person you’re giving them to being a different size.

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5. They’re a little extension of ourselves

Megs and I both developed an interest in bags in high school as a way to express our burgeoning personal styles, and I think that’s true for a lot of bag lovers. Accessories have an enormous impact on an outfit, and bags are among the most effective ways to telegraph a little bit of your personality in situations where your other aesthetic choices might be restricted.

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6. They can mean so much more than the sum of their contents

Last fall, we partnered with AllState Foundation Purple Purse to help fight domestic violence and financial abuse, and it’s no coincidence that the campaign uses handbags as its biggest symbol. For many women, our bags represent far more to us than just a part of our outfits–they’re a daily vessel for some of the most important things in our lives.

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7. They’re durable and reliable

Bags are meant to be used, and a good one will put up with a lot before you finally need to put it out to pasture. If only that were true of everything in our lives and closets!

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8. They make our lives easier

Ideally, a good bag is one you sort of forget you’re lugging around. When designed thoughtfully and carefully, bags keep the things we need close at hand and easily accessible. One less thing to worry about.

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9. There’s something so satisfying about picking a new one

Having a great bag is fun, of course, but there’s something to be said for the thrill of the chase. Finding something you love, plotting your acquisition, pulling the trigger–we highly endorse all phases of the Treat Yo’ Self process.

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10. They’re the best way to have a little luxury with you every day

Few of us have lifestyles or bank accounts that allow us to swan around in head-to-toe designer duds every day (or ever, even). We think that’s one of the reasons bags are so popular: they allow people who live normal lives, just like we do, to adorn themselves with something beautiful and exquisitely crafted as we go about our daily routines.

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