Blogs

According to Mintel, a market researcher, U.S. handbag market sales reached $8 billion in 2011, up from $6 billion in 2006. I can only assume that this $2 billion increase is due to concurrent rise in sales of those little Kleenexes you keep in purses, but I have no report for that.

Perplexed men, including me, ask, "Why this fascination with handbags, enough to cause an increase in sales in five years equal to the Gross National Product of Greenland?" (Note to Greenland: Consider building more handbag factories). Let's take a look.

The scientific hope for a sub-atomic handbag

The handbag section is an area of your average department store that, if designed by men, would consist of a single medium-sized cloth sack with a drawstring on it hanging from a stick, suitable for carrying any number of objects, but, of course, with an almost criminal lack of style.

As with shoes, there are about as many handbag styles as there are overly dramatized reality TV shows, and with less apparent purpose to the male eye. You can choose from Totes, Satchels, Saddle Bags, Backpacks, Hobo Bags, Shoulder Bags, Clutches and Evening Bags, Wallets, Travel Bags and Diaper Bags, not to mention Doctor's, Drawstring, Half-moon, Messenger, Evening, Flat, Trapezoid, Baguette, Bucket and Bowling Ball bags. Some bags even have bags of their own, like a kangaroo mother's pouch for her baby; bags that fit inside larger bags, and pocket books inside that, and wallets inside that, quite possibly on down to the atomic level, where scientists may someday try to successfully collide a Gucci electron into a Versace molecule without blowing up Bloomingdales.

Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my handbag!

But each of these bags (so we're told) provide an important function, indecipherable to males, who could successfully use a Wal-Mart plastic bag for everything from carrying their lunch to their grandmother's ashes and not think anything of it. These functions include, but are not limited to, carrying everything in the known universe. A woman's handbag is like a magician's hat; curious things appear out of it that make you wonder why they exist, such as

• A program from the spring vocal concert of your 1st grader (now in college)

• 23 kinds of stuff you put on your lips

• Coupon for 5 percent off knee waxing (expired in 2003)

• 14 kinds of gum

• Approximately 12,468 receipts

• Small pets

• More bags (see above)

Men, to understand this a little better, it may help you to compare the contents of a woman's bag with the contents of your garage, with its shelves of car parts from that Chevy you had once but never restored, 14 rolls of ill-fitting weed whacker string, boxes of malfunctioning Christmas tree lights you curse at every November, and 34 different kinds of ancient insecticide you got from your grandfather's garage that you never use and have probably already given you cancer. Where the analogy falls apart spectacularly is that you have no need for nine different garages, to be switched out every few months, with giraffe-skin-patterned doors and eight zippers on the walls.

The ceremonial changing of the handbags

Another function of the handbag is to tell other women that you have a new handbag. Much like the Raving Otters of Saskatchewan, who proudly grow a new tail each month for the purpose of telling the other female otters to - well, no, that doesn't really work; maybe it's like the magnetic crystals in homing pigeons that allow them to… um... or - well, to be honest, I'm not finding a good analogy from nature, which explains why men continue to be so confused when Purse-Changing Time occurs. Did the old one break? No. Do I need to glue that thing on it again? No. Did it spring a leak? Does it need an oil change? Is it molting? Of course not, silly man, now, fetch me my Macy's catalog; I feel winter approaching and my lipstick needs to be protected by a new fur half-moon clutch.

So, men, we are left to ponder the intricate bond between a woman and her handbag, possibly now as clueless as when we started (the men, not the woman). Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Christmas tree lights to go curse at.

- Dan Van Oss

Dan Van Oss is the curator of the Dubious Knowledge Institute, and divides his creative time between writing, music recording and performance, painting and photography. He lives in the Iowa City, Iowa, area with his wife Nancy, three beautiful stepdaughters and a Golden Retriever named Jack.