Last week I was having a classically frantic New York day. I was already running late for a morning event, and I had several stops to make afterward, including selling clothes at the downtown vintage store James Veloria. I needed something to haul my stuff, quickly.
In a rush I grabbed a hulking promotional shopping bag. The shopping bag, a safe bet I loved this white matte shopping bag for its sheer largeness. It’s a pain in the ass, so big it can hold a toddler—or two.
The size is not made for the cramped confines of the subway, but rather it begs for its own spacious reservation, the backseat of an Uber. Its heft demands glamorous handling. And that is exactly how I treated the zaftig carryall from the beginning of the day: I called an overpriced car, plopped that beacon of an XXL bag down next to me, and rode across the bridge.
A shopping bag is almost like a trophy. It reads “I came, I saw, I shopped,” but more than that play on Caesar’s motto, it really says, “I was out in the world, experiencing it.” I had long forgotten about this connection until I went to James Veloria and dropped off some suits I never wore to trade for a saucy little Versace suit dress.
I skipped through Chinatown with the store’s co-owner Brandon Giordano , where we laughed over an impromptu dim sum lunch and then strolled into a shop filled with Chinese tchotchkes. I felt alive as I Venmoed the store owner for a pair of $25 sequin-embroidered black mules. I tossed them into my sleek shopping bag, and I was on my way.
Practical and glamorous? Leaving the store, Giordano and I resembled that Tumblred-to-death image of onetime friends Winona Ryder and a cowboy-hat-wearing Gwyneth Paltrow, galloping around SoHo in the late ’90s with their Tocca shopping bags on their arms. I felt a bit nostalgic, like I was living in a bygone era when I wasn’t mindlessly scrolling on resale platforms at 11 p.m.
or lazily clicking Express Shipping. And maybe that is because shopping in person feels like a bygone activity. There’s a great article in the December 1996 issue of Vogue by Katherine Betts titled “Passion for Fashion.
” The article is illustrated with women such as Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock , and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy toting along black Barneys New York shopping bags. In one image, a horde of shoppers with bags in the crooks of their arms gazed into a store window where the designer Giorgio Armani was styling Ashley Judd for all to see. The article is a poetic rebuttal to a shopaholic doomsday piece by The New York Times that reported that women were over shopping.
They were, allegedly, buying toasters instead of metallic Manolo Blahnik sandals. Quelle horreur ! To really see if shopping was dunzo, Betts headed to New York City’s mammoth department stores and freshly opened mega boutiques and watched as women bought and consumed. The Times was wrong! Screw toasters: Ladies were crammed in Giorgio Armani’s freshly opened Madison Avenue store like sardines.
At Prada , hoards of chicks were sliding their credit cards across the counter. The most important accessory was a branded shopping bag on every arm. Celebrities, who are fans of shopping bags The shopping scenes that Betts describes are an apocalyptic mess of chic.
These women aren’t gatherers; these are hunters, trying to track down a perfect strappy Jimmy Choo heel or the latest Prada nylon backpack. But Betts detailed more than a shopping bender: She saw women out in the world not only shopping but also being out in the world. Betts’ article describes the yearning I get when I spot a woman walking with a shopping bag.
There’s a certain throw-caution-to-the-wind mood that surrounds a big shopping bag. How many times have we seen a carefree Carrie Bradshaw traipsing around the city in a tutu with an armful of shopping bags and only a declined credit card to her name? She’s in a limbo of happiness. And those Real Housewives biddies from whatever city they hail from, drunk with their endless bags on their endless arms.
They seem to be having fun. The same goes for those late-‘90s and ‘00s paparazzi shots of celebrities shopping: Mariah Carey. Madonna .
Janet Jackson. The other day the Instagram account @gettyimagesfanclub posted a lone photo of Molly Ringwald walking around New York in the 1990s with a humble brown Banana Republic bag. She looked incredible toting that disposable accessory around.
1990s and 2000s: the golden age of the shopping bag It’s a feeling you can’t get from the mindless scroll of The RealReal or overnight delivery from Net-a-Porter in those sterile vans. The internet has consumed us all, and shopping has largely become a solo, screen-aided activity. And in a way it feels lonely.
In my own life, there are rarely any shopping bags. The corner of my kitchen is a sepulcher of sliced-and-diced brown boxes that once held vintage clothes that I bought from eBay or Poshmark but don’t spark the same joy. Sometimes I’ll receive a gift from a label, glamorously messengered over in a branded shopping bag, a small cry of “We’re here! Remember us?” With a shopping bag, everyone is on a mission.
Everyone is in a moment. Present. Perhaps the idea of physically shopping and the booty that comes with that act represents another dimension, a temporary reprieve from boring responsibilities and reality.
I don’t think I am living when I am buying online. Am I having an experience when I shop via the internet? No, I’m plugging in my credit card behind a screen and tracking DHL shipments on my phone. I always say clothes should have a story.
I can muse on and on about the history of a Tom Ford –era Gucci skirt I got online for a discounted steal, but how much story can a piece of clothing have when it’s plucked from a phone screen? Suddenly I’m craving clothes that have my own memories attached to them. I felt like I was on a high with this massive shopping bag on my arm that somehow propelled me further into the city. There was so much space to fill, so much to see.
This article was previously published on vogue.com More Fashion on Vogue.fr : Gone are the days of quiet luxury : logo belts are making a comeback An ode to Serena van der Woodsen's best style moments in Gossip Girl The best street style photos from the spring 2025 shows in Copenhagen More of Vogue France on YouTube:.
