Does This Bag Look Too Big on Me?

“What about you? Do you hate big bags, love them, somewhere in the middle? For clarification, I’m not talking about a big bag for work or travel. I mean to carry to a lunch date or a day shopping, etc. To carry it for the style of it, not necessarily b/c you need to carry a ton of stuff.”

PurseForum member KimTX’s comment in the thread “I am falling back in LoVe with BIG bags” had me speculating: Is there such a thing as the “right” size for a bag? I mean of course, there’s me (and so many of you out there) who’d haul luggage around if it was something I really liked. Speaking of which, remember that gigantic red Hermès Haut à Courroies Katie Holmes (whose bag choices I simply adore) carried? Yeah, that’s the kind of big bag person I am. It’s (sometimes) justified too, because of course some of us do need to stow away our laptops, gym clothes, extra pairs of shoes and umbrellas as well as our children and/or significant others in our bags. Of course.

But then there are those of us who are content with carrying just a petit Jacquemus for our daily needs, and I secretly suspect that you guys have gigantic totes hidden in your trunks that may or may not have people in them….

Honestly though, even if a Jacquemus isn’t necessarily your daily carry, there are those of us who can condense our lives into a Chanel 2.55, a Balenciaga Hourglass or a clutch/pouch equivalent. And ever so often, these women (or men) are terrified that any bag larger than the aforementioned would overpower their frames and, as so many TPFers fear, that the “bag would wear you instead of you wearing the bag”.

So it isn’t just the load you need to carry around throughout the day, but also your proportions too is a thing to consider when judging a bag. Even then, a range of factors come into play, like petite wearers should wear smaller bags and taller users should opt for bigger purses. Top-heavy people should consider crossbody bags and bottom-heavy ones should go for bags that sit above the hip—the list is endless. I’m sure there are just as many variations to this as the number of body types that exist on Earth.

Don’t even get me started on the backpack-wearing crowd because why would a person purposely want to look like a mule, right? Unless you’re going to work I suppose, but even then are backpacks really formal? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Speaking of work, which again brings me to the loads we carry, some TPFers are of the opinion that if they use a bigger bag they are more drawn to carrying extra, irrelevant things that they don’t really need. That is a legitimate concern I can relate to because why else would my backpacking friend carry a bicycle jack to a hiking trip we weren’t even cycling during? True story.

Additionally, some of us inevitably wind up carrying not only the bunch of miscellaneous flotsam that we absolutely can’t do without, but also a motley flock of every Avenger action figure there is. Not to mention the food and clothes of your little ones too. In fact, my mom’s leather tote now has a permanently debossed Spiderman-face on it! (It was my younger brother’s. I don’t play with Spidermen. I don’t know why I needed to clarify that, but I digress…)

Finally, if you do happen to stumble upon the elusive “right” size of a bag, something else seems to be off. Either the handles are too short, the crossbody strap is too long, or the bag doesn’t have feet. Or maybe it’s a “black hole” where all of your stuff gets lost. Perhaps it lacks the requisite top zipper that you absolutely can’t do without. Eventually, all of these shortcomings have you questioning whether there really is something like a “perfect purse”.

While in all honesty I am in no capacity to judge what size of bag a person should carry because, as Megs says so often, the heart wants what the heart wants. I’m sure I myself will soon be obsessing over the next oversized clutch which, in hindsight, seems like a bit of a paradox, but I’d love to know what kind of bag-person are you? Are you a micro, small, medium, large, extra large, XXL, north-south, east-west or inside-out wearer? Seriously, I’d love to know because I see the sizes or types of bags we prefer (and often the uniquely frustrating issues we face with them) as a celebration of diversity and freedom of choice.

Clearly Shakespeare too was indecisive when he wrote in Macbeth, “to each his own”. But I think ultimately he was a big-bag person at heart because I’m quite sure he also said, “a bag could never be too big”. Either him or Jennifer Lopez. Probably him.