Rise of the Man Purse
Lil Wayne recently appeared at a basketball game carrying a Louis Vuitton murse. Seen on stars from Jude Law to Jay-Z, and on the Burberry runway, the man-bag is having its moment. By Isabel Wilkinson.
When Lil Wayne appeared courtside at Game 3 of the WNBA finals last week, he looked appropriately badass in a pair of cutoff denim shorts, an oversized Jersey, and a million-dollar sneer. But then, as he cheered on his team, we saw it: there, hanging from his belt, was a small Louis Vuitton pouch, no larger than his palm. Maybe it held his business cards, Kleenex or his house keys, but one thing was for sure—it was a murse.
Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has a favorite Gucci clutch that he carries under one arm with about as much authority as a sideline coach with a clipboard; Snoop Dogg pairs his Louis Vuitton with a shower cap—and Jude Law has been photographed with a yellow leopard-print mini-audiere. Man purses are nothing new. But an accessory that just a few years ago may have called a man’s masculinity into question is now all over runways—from Burberry to Versace—in different shapes and sizes. And with iPads and Kindles to carry, a good man-bag is quickly becoming a fashion necessity.
Everyday dapper men have become overnight style stars thanks to street-style blogs, which have brought man bags into the spotlight. “Man-bags have definitely become more popular, and men carrying luxury bags has become more socially acceptable,” says Meaghan Mahoney Dusil, of The Purse Blog. Stylist Brad Goreski, was a standout example during New York Fashion Week, when evoked Harry Potter with his neon-green bag from the Cambridge Satchel Company. “As so many things in men’s fashion, it starts off with the gays, and then 10 years later, straight men are doing the same thing,” says Tom Fitzgerald of the fashion blog Tom & Lorenzo
In calling around about the murse, I saw some themes start to emerge. By and large, men want bags large enough to look masculine and carry everything—but small enough not look foolish if they wind up having to bring the bag straight from the office out to dinner. I’ll never forget arriving at a restaurant for dinner to the sight of my date wrestling a massive mini squash bag under the table. Of course, it obstructed the narrow aisle between tables and was quickly confiscated by the front desk. (There was, needless to say, no second date). Designer Alejandro Ingelmo, who will introduce his first bags for men next season, says functional man-bags are ones that easily transition from day to night. “I wanted something that could go to work, go to the gym, go to dinner and it’s not a ‘gym bag,’” he says. “It’s like the girl who wears flats and puts on her heels at night.”
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