Extract from the above article: How a woman's handbag can take on a life of its own...
As the award-winning director and screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail, Nora Ephron is celebrated as one of Hollywood's sharpest wits.
Now 65, she has written an irreverent and moving collection of essays about growing older. Here, in the second part of our exclusive series, she takes an ironic look at the world of designer fashion accessories, and also reveals the things in life she wishes she'd known when she was younger:
I hate my bag. I absolutely hate it. If you're one of those women who think there's something great about handbags, don't even bother reading this because there will be nothing here for you.
This is for women who hate their bags, who are bad at bags, who understand that their bags are reflections of negligent housekeeping, hopeless disorganisation, a chronic inability to throw anything away, and an ongoing failure to handle the obligations of a demanding accessory (the obligation, for example, that it should in some way match what you're wearing).
This is for women whose bags are a morass of loose Tic Tacs, lipsticks without tops, Chap-Sticks of unknown vintage, little bits of tobacco even though there has been no smoking going on for at least ten years, tampons that have come loose from their wrappings, foreign coins from the last trip abroad, boarding passes from long-forgotten airplane trips, leaky ballpoint pens, Kleenexes that either have or have not been used but there's no way to be sure one way or another, scratched spectacles, an old tea bag, several crumpled personal cheques that have come loose from the cheque book and are covered with smudge marks, and an unprotected toothbrush that looks as if it has been used to polish silver.
This is for women who in mid-July realise they still haven't bought a summer bag or who in midwinter are still carrying around a straw bag.
This is for women who find it appalling that a bag might cost £300, never mind that top-of-the-line thing called a Birkin bag that costs £5,000 - not that it's relevant because you can't even get on the waiting list for one. :lol:
On the waiting list! For a bag! For a £5000 handbag that will end up full of old Tic Tacs!
This is for those of you who understand, in short, that your bag is, in some absolutely horrible way, you.
Or, as Louis XIV might have put it but didn't because he was much too smart to have a bag, Le sac, c'est moi.
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Evening bags, for reasons that are obscure unless you're a Marxist, cost even more than regular bags.
But unfortunately, there were times when I needed to leave the house with more than the basics.
I solved this problem by purchasing an overcoat with large pockets. :lol: This, I realise, turned my coat into a bag, but it was still better than carrying a bag. Anything is better than carrying a bag.
...
And there's half a bottle of water, along with several snacks you saved from an airplane trip in case you ever found yourself starving and unaccountably craving a piece of cheese that tastes like plastic.
Perhaps you can fit your sneakers in, too. Yes, by God, you can! Before you know it, your bag weighs 20lb and you are in grave danger of getting tennis elbow and needing an operation from carrying it around.
Everything you own is in your bag. You could flee the Cossacks with your bag. But when you open it up, you can't find a thing in it - your bag is just a big dark hole full of stuff you spend hours fishing around for. A flashlight would help, but if you were to put one into your bag, you'd never find it.
