The three bags that replaced twelve

I used to have, by an actual count one Sunday three years ago, twelve handbags. Three were dressy. Two were everyday. One was a tote for grocery runs. One was a small leather backpack for travel. Two were small evening clutches. Three were various crossbodies in various sizes and colours. The twelve bags had cost, in total, somewhere around fifteen hundred euros over the previous decade.

I now have three bags. A medium-sized structured leather handbag in dark brown for everyday use. A small leather crossbody in black for evenings out. A larger canvas-and-leather weekender for travel. The three together cover ninety-five percent of my actual needs. The other five percent — black-tie events, a specific work meeting that wants something particular — I handle by occasionally borrowing from a friend.

The everyday bag

The brown leather handbag is the one I use most. It is big enough to carry a small notebook, a wallet, keys, a phone, a book, and a small water bottle. It is small enough to not look like a piece of luggage. It is, importantly, structured — it holds its shape rather than slumping — which means that the things inside it are organised by gravity rather than by a constant rearrangement.

I bought this bag five years ago and it has been my primary everyday bag ever since. The leather has darkened with use. The brass hardware has acquired a slight patina. The bag is, by any visual measure, more beautiful now than it was the day I bought it.

The evening bag

Small. Black. Just big enough for keys, a phone, a credit card, and a small tube of lipstick. It cost three hundred euros nine years ago and has been to every dinner, gallery opening, and evening event I have attended in those nine years. The bag is, for all practical purposes, never going to need replacement.

The travel bag

Larger, with both handles and a long strap, capable of holding two changes of clothes and a few small toiletries. The canvas-and-leather construction means it is light enough for a long day of carrying and tough enough to survive being checked or thrown in an overhead bin. The bag has been to about forty cities. It still looks essentially new.

What I gave up

The other nine bags. Most of them were bags I had bought for specific occasions or moods, and most of them had been used less than ten times each. The bags I sold, gave away, or recycled. The space they had been taking — both physical and mental — was considerable.

The smaller principle

Three is enough. For most adults, in most lives, three bags — one for the everyday, one for evenings, one for travel — cover the actual range of bag-use. The other ten or twelve bags that we accumulate over the years are mostly aspirational. The mass of bags makes choosing each morning harder. The small set of three makes the choice automatic, and the automaticity is, in a small way, a kind of daily liberation.