Fashionistas learn the hard way that ‘lug’ is root word of luggage
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Fashionistas, brace yourselves (literally): It’s not enough that those Manolos are doing a number on your feet, but if you plan to take a trip anytime soon, your hands, shoulders and arms are also going to suffer for art (the art of looking chic).
Spring’s hottest trend: the so-called ‘‘travel bag,” essentially an enormous purse pressed into duty as a suitcase for those weekend getaways we all take to the Bahamas (outlying, unspoiled islands only, please).
Roll your stewardess-style bag right into your closet, lock the door and throw away the key, lest you be tempted to choose comfort over image. For anyone who’s anyone, or pretending to be anyone, luggage on wheels is the travel equivalent of wearing sneakers and a skirt. Practical, comfortable, but a vigorous NO.
And don’t try to buck the trend, hoping it will stay in Paris, where a Louis Vuitton model carried a travel bag bigger than herself down the runway recently, because it’s on our shores, right in Newton Centre, among other hot spots. At the cool handbag store Stash, bags measuring more than 2 feet across and with names like the ‘‘hammock” are going fast.
It won’t be long until the fashion industry starts borrowing model names from the automakers, and Vogue carries photos of the Hummer bag by Marc Jacobs, the Armada by Prada.
And don’t think of putting your bag down to give your cramping arm a rest. You’d have to be crazy to risk staining the bottom of such an investment ‘‘piece.”
‘‘My hand was really hurting so I kept switching sides,” one woman with a knockoff Louis Vuitton mega-bag told me. Palm pain, though, is nothing compared with the agony of being out of style. So rather than give up her enormous satchel altogether, she’s taken to packing only a few lightweight items inside - a lip gloss, maybe - and putting the rest in checked luggage.
Which gets at the real appeal behind the big bags. Owning one marks you as the kind of person who does not really need to carry luggage at all. It is sent ahead, or your driver carries it into the country house you’re visiting.
‘‘ ‘Send for my things’ sounds so much better than pulling a box on wheels behind you,” one fashionista told me. But, she said, she’s a bit wary of the bags. Not because of the weight, but the color. ‘‘It has to match your outfit or there’s no point,” she explained.
Which means, of course, you’ve got to pack even more clothes. Just not in your new giant bag.
