Handbags: The Power of the Purse

The Bolide, the Birkin, buckets and baugettes. Moschino's smiley-face bag and Judith Leiber's whimsical minaudières. Venetian vs. Bohemian beads. The history of the handbag and the history of style. With over 900 full-color photographs, Handbags is an exravagance of desire, secrecy, humor, fashion, craftsmanship, art, and exhuberance.

"Anna Johnson is the Dr. Joyce Brothers of the purse world. Don't even think about buying another bag until you have inhaled every clasp and clutch in this book." Simon Doonan, The New York Observer

With over 900 colour photographs and illustrations, this title provides a visual feast of handbags. The author reveals the trade secrets of designers in interviews, capturing the "It" bag that defines a period of decade.

Celebrating a must-have accessory for the fashion-conscious woman, "Handbags" is an irresistible visual extravaganza, featuring over 900 full-color photos of the most luxurious, witty, examples of the bag maker's art and history.

The Bolide. The Plume. The Birkin--object of lust in Sex in the City. Celebrating the must-have accessory for the fashion conscious woman, Handbags is an obsessive, irresistible visual extravaganza, featuring over 900 full-color photographs of the most luxurious, witty, covetable, talismanic examples of the bagmaker's art and history.

The iconic Hermés Kelly bag, made from first stitch to last by a single craftsperson. Judith Leiber's whimsical minaudiFres, Moschino's smiley-face bag, Elsa Schiaparelli's surrealist "bird cage," and the ne plus ultra of fashionable purses--the Chanel bag, reinvented for a new generation by Karl Lagerfeld. There are novelty bags, evening bags, sculptural bags, and class acts. Practical leather pochettes to carry a life, and elegant little reticules for nothing more than a credit card and a lipstick. Profiles of famous bagmakers: Jamin Puech, Kate Spade, Carlos Falchi, and the poet of utility, Bonnie Cashin, with her visionary "Cashin Carry" bags for Coach. Plus the anonymous Florentine artisans whose specialist leather workshops sprouted up in the 14th century.

A labor of love written by Anna Johnson, author of Three Black Skirts, Handbags features over 900 bags from collections, museums, and designers around the world, most of them photographed in seductive full-color exclusively for the book. The perfectly matched complement to Shoes, Handbags is about fashion, about desire, about secrecy, craftsmanship, art, and imagination as well as about the changing roles of women--everything that's packed into every important bag. Includes timelines, fascinating captions, and the "It" bags--anyone for a Fendi baguette?

Anna Johnson started her career at nineteen as a journalist with Stiletto magazine. She writes for Vogue Australia, Vogue UK, Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, and Elle. Currently she's dividing her time between Sydney and New York.

Introduction

How the Bag Was Born

CLASS ACTS: ELEGANT ICONS

NIGHT CREATTURES: THE EVENING BAG

SCULPTURAL CHIC: SHAPE & STRUCTURE

OBSESSIVE ORNAMENT: THE DECORATED BAG

AMERICAN CLASSICS: SPORTY STYLE

NOVELTY & CA