Six Years, Six Cities, Six Handbags: A Personal Journey Through Memory and Style

How Handbags Become Anchors for Life’s Most Meaningful Moments

Certain accessories transcend their practical purpose. They carry more than essentials; they hold the texture of a season, the shape of a relationship, the mood of a city, and the small rituals that make a life feel lived in. For one collector, six handbags mark six distinct chapters across six different cities over the course of six years.

New York, July 2012: The Longchamp That Carried Everything

From an eleventh-floor dorm room, the nightly stream of headlights between Manhattan and Brooklyn became a familiar kind of loneliness. Summer in the city proved far more isolating than anticipated—more so than the quiet campus breaks at Princeton, where classmates with Goyard totes and MacBooks disappeared to sun-drenched destinations.

Without a Goyard, a grayish-blue Longchamp Pliage bore the brunt of daily life. Without a Goyard of her own, a gray-blue Longchamp Pliage became the everyday workhorse. The brown leather straps gradually sagged, and the tote’s corners wore down to gray nubs. Over time, the leather straps softened and sagged, while the corners wore down to a pale, weathered gray. He was busy staffing a music festival hundreds of miles away, and their schedules rarely aligned.

Running in oversize ballet flats, she splashed through city puddles with the Longchamp tucked under one arm, turning a simple nylon bag into a dependable companion for a difficult season. Running in oversized ballet flats, city-brown puddle water splashed around ankles and lingered.

Princeton, May 2015: A Kate Spade Crossbody Marks a Reunion

After sixteen hundred miles of V8 engine rumble, a road trip ended on a warm evening near the campus where two people first met. There was no air conditioning to soften the heat, and a small blue Kate Spade crossbody—given as an anniversary gift—held the essentials: wet wipes, hair ties, and the kind of optimism that travel can briefly restore.

Sleep came easily that night. The next day brought a slow walk past the places once filled with a different version of life: dining hall, library, dorm, stone paths, glass doors. Remembering naps in common room armchairs and cramming with friends is one thing; discovering you are locked out of those spaces is another. More than once, reaching into the bag for a student ID or key card brought the realization that none of them worked anymore. The feeling lingered long after the visit ended.

Paris, March 2016: The Chloé Faye That Blended In

Paris was chosen on a whim when it was time to decide where to meet that spring. A city built for romance felt appropriate: layered stone facades, café tables, evening light, and long walks beside the river. A full week of outfits, dinners, coffee outings, and scenic riverside walks was planned meticulously.

The bitter cold was not planned. What was not carefully arranged was the weather. The bag was brought along to blend in with the French—and it did, under cupolas, on crowded bridges, and atop red brasserie tables.

The bag was chosen to blend in, and in that sense it succeeded: it felt at home under cupolas, on crowded bridges, and beside red brasserie tables. Without an umbrella, concern for the Faye grew, but the first drops were so soft they felt like minute pinpricks on bare arms. Then, as if underscoring departure with cinematic flair, the morning of the flight home brought a downpour. At the bus stop, the bag was tucked into a plastic shopping bag from the Louvre for protection, and a final goodbye unfolded under streetlamps and umbrellas. Thoughtfully, the suede-trimmed purse was wrapped in a plastic shopping bag from the Louvre to protect it. In Amsterdam, the handbag decision was made with a rare kind of certainty. Tears likely lasted the entire flight home.

Amsterdam, February 2017: The Architectural Dior Diorama

But the simple black Dior Diorama with soft gold hardware warranted a confident nod. “This one feels architectural,” N. told me. “It suits you.”

Brushed bronze studs did not persuade.

“This one feels architectural,” N. told me. “It suits you.”

patiently waited while the salesman laid out variation after variation of the same handbag on the glass counter, offering little more than an occasional nod or frown. “This one feels architectural,” N. Metallic silver leather: frown. The purchase itself became part of the memory: a patient sales floor, a lover who had followed work across the Atlantic, and a city in winter where breath hung visibly in the air.

“This one feels architectural,” N. told me. “It suits you.”

The salesman had followed a lover from the States to the Netherlands, too. The trip was brief, and the separation that followed was long, which made the handbag feel less like an accessory than a marker of time spent together.

After dinner in a darkened tearoom of black marble and grandfather clocks, the two stood huddled for warmth on a train station platform, watching their breath snake upward in white tendrils. Over several difficult years, the city of childhood became tangled with absence, tension, and the ache of unfinished conversations. They had not seen each other in months, and after this trip, they would not again for several more.

Houston, 2015–2017: The Céline Luggage Tote as Therapy

When home is a person rather than a place, what does a geographic home become? A DSLR camera and a large black Céline Luggage Tote entered life at nearly the same time, and the tote was easy to justify as a camera bag that did not resemble one. Staying in the city where one grew up meant catching up by the glow of a phone screen late at night, staring across the dinner table at an empty seat, feeling traces of a missing person through birthday cards on display or a shirt left behind.

Photography helped pull life outward again. A DSLR camera and a large, black Céline Luggage Tote were acquired in quick succession. The latter was justified as a camera bag that did not look like the average camera bag—a tenuous excuse at best.

Even now, the Céline brings back that shift from isolation toward participation, from surviving the day to noticing it. The spaces in daily life filled with people’s smiles, their pets, their weddings, and their birthday celebrations. Personal history and handbag history have finally converged in the same postcode.

Seattle, November 2018: When Histories Converge

Arguments still happen, but now they are about closet space in a tiny city apartment instead of time zone differences or travel schedules.

our personal history and handbag history have finally converged in the same postcode for the first time in years

pointed out, is disproportionately devoted to handbags, with his own side of the storage clearly taking the narrower share.

A disproportionate share of the closet is taken up, as N. points out, showing where the handbag section ends and his meager one begins. Over the years, the collection had grown, and the addition of practical photographer’s gear—such as a bulky canvas ONA camera bag for trips to the Olympic Peninsula—only sharpened the question of space. The Céline, in its dust bag, is taking a well-deserved camera break and may need its weight-stretched handles serviced soon.

There is no final verdict yet in the closet-space debate. For now, both seem content without a resolution—especially since personal history and handbag history have finally converged in the same postcode for the first time in years.

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