“Hi, I’m Charli XCX, and that’s what’s inside my bag.”
I’ve always been drawn to handbags and find them quite interesting—not just as fashion accessories, but as objects rich with personal and cultural meaning. For this unit, I decided to explore them more deeply, investigating how they function as containers that both reveal and conceal aspects of identity. So, shall we take a look inside?
Context
Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s concept of the carrier bag as a vessel for storytelling, this project considers how bags structure our everyday experiences—holding, concealing, and revealing objects that reflect broader questions of privacy, social performance, and identity. It explores the tension between presence and absence, visibility and concealment, and asks how the contents of a bag produce hierarchies of meaning and power.
01 Portrait
I examined two types of bags: the everyday, functional bag and the occasional, event-specific one—each constructing a different portrait of femininity. What do anti-schlepp bags—the antithesis of practicality—suggest about contemporary expectations of women’s identities and appearances?
02 System
Through critique, the term system surfaced—a reminder that a bag is more than a vessel. It is an organized structure of compartments, closures, and habits that manage what is carried, what is accessed, and what is hidden. These systems reveal the subtle hierarchies of function, accessibility, and adaptability embedded in daily life.
03 Outline
A bag holds both the visible and the private, echoing the dualities of womanhood. By inviting participants to sort items from most to least private, I explored how perception is shaped by spatial form. Can graphic design manipulate negative and positive space to reframe what we see? If we only see the outline of a bag, does it still speak of status, femininity, or use? As Barthes reminds us, meaning is always context-dependent, so what happens when form is all we’re left with?