The Bag Parade: Life on the sidelines of fashion

By Liza Powel O’Brien

Every year the start of school marks an exciting time for me: For three hours each day, five days a week, my children will be Somewhere Else. Even more exciting however is the prospect of viewing the live- action, multi-label runway that takes place during drop-off and pick- up at our school. I suppose it’s natural that when a bunch of women are in the same place at the same time, fashion  happens. And these women are formidable–endowed with deep pockets and an even deeper need to announce whatever position it is they feel they occupy in the world (Wealthy? Powerful? New Yorker? Sexually viable?). Their clothing and, even more so, their bags are worn as if to say, “Yes, I may have birthed three babies but my abs are still hard, my butt is still high, my hair is still long and if I walloped you with my pocketbook you’d wake up in Brooklyn.”

I call it the Bag Parade, and often find myself embarrassingly transfixed not by the cherubic faces of my children’s classmates but by the fabric, leather and metal stylings that hang over and under the arms of their mothers. There are Gucci animal prints, Prada pillboxes and more than a few Hermes silver buckles. There are quilts and patents, furry things and chains. Each day presents the opportunity for me, drifting through the halls in my usual sleep-deprived stupor, to participate in one of the great American pastimes: Seeing How Other People Do It.

My first taste of this was on our first day, two ars ago, when I saw another mother of a two year-old dressed head-to-toe in Prada, with kitten heels and a beautiful belt. A belt! I hadn’t had the creative energy necessary to select a belt since the nineties. This woman not only had smooth, bare legs and managed to keep her shirt tucked in, she actually carried her twenty-odd pounds of child up six flights of stairs in those heels and escaped without one smudge of dirt on her pressed white blouse. I’ve since learned that she was six months pregnant at the time. Hers is not my way, nor will it ever be, but it’s fascinating to see what other people are able to make happen.

Sometimes those possibilities are a little too seductive. This spring I became captivated by a white Miu Miu bag with a big silver circle for a handle that I glimpsed through the stair railing and stared at for four flights. The woman carrying it was one of those willowy, artsy-cool sorts who always seem sunnier, more relaxed, taller and better dressed than I (today I spotted her in a long mohair sweater with a gorgeous shape and greenish-grey color while I shuffled past in my baggy trousers and uninspired black top). The white Miu Miu inspired a fruitless search for something similar that lasted all season and resulted in multiple purchases of other, lesser white bags.

This season is still young but I think I’ve already found my new white whale: a Marni handbag with an elliptical resin handle. It comes in black, brown, purple, silver and grey and is available at Barneys or Net-a-Porter.com. Now, I love this bag–on someone else. It speaks to me. But can it speak for me? Currently my bag of choice is the extraordinarily utilitarian large shoulder Bretelle bag from m0851. I like it because it’s simple and unbelievably lightweight. Also this season it comes in a raspberry color that just makes me happy for some reason. I like it, but it won’t be turning any heads on the Bag Parade (at least, not for any good reason). Which begs the question: Do I dare copy-cat? Or will trying to step into someone else’s bag lead me to a large purchase I never know how to own? Until I decide, you can find me on the sidelines, keeping (rather unfashionably) mum.