Review: It’s In the Bag by Winifred Gallagher

Today, in January’s art & culture section, Tracy Quan examines It’s In the Bag by Winifred Gallagher:

Does carrying one of these grown-up security blankets make you a slave to fashion, or a more independent, mobile person? Gallagher engages sociologists, historians and, of course, bag designers, and comes up with some remarkable answers. Fashion historian Valerie Steele thinks women with multiple bags are practicing a form of serial monogamy, while a shoe collection is more like “a harem.” Steele sums it up as “affairs versus marriage.” In other words, shoe collectors are sexual tomboys, while handbag lovers embody feminine virtue. If your harem, like mine, consists of handbags, you might, as I did, take exception to these roles.

Quan’s review is here.