What my bags remember
There’s a few bags I have been loving lately. Perhaps too many, if I’m being honest. At this point, I could probably build a small collection and still find room in my heart for one more.
I’ve always loved a bag that can carry almost all my life inside it, a notebook filled with unfinished thoughts, a book I swear I’ll finish, a lip balm I can never seem to find when I need it, receipts from places I’ve forgotten, and little pieces of my day gathered along the way. The bigger the bag, the more room there seems to be for both my belongings and my wandering mind.
But I don’t think I love bags simply because they are useful. I think I love them because they become quiet witnesses to our lives.
A bag remembers.
It remembers the city where I found it tucked away in a little shop. It remembers the excitement of carrying it home for the first time, carefully removing the wrapping as if I were unboxing a new chapter of myself. It remembers the cafés, train rides, spontaneous road trips, and ordinary errands that somehow became memories. Some bags remind me of people. A gift from a loved one. A bag borrowed and never quite returned. A bag purchased to celebrate a milestone, a new beginning, or simply surviving a difficult season. Years later, the leather may soften and the corners may wear, but the memory remains stitched into every seam.
I often think that bags are much like journals, except they write their stories differently. Instead of words, they collect traces of a life being lived. A forgotten ticket tucked into a pocket. A pressed receipt from a favourite bookstore. A faint perfume lingering in the lining. Small evidence that says, I was here. I carried this day with me.
Maybe that’s why I’m always adding another bag to my wish list. It isn’t really about owning more things. It’s about imagining the stories they might one day hold. The places they’ll travel to, the people they’ll meet, the version of myself that will carry them.
And so I continue to admire bags the way some people admire old photographs. Not because they are perfect, but because they are vessels of memory. They carry our essentials, yes—but they also carry fragments of who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.
Perhaps that’s why I could never have just one. Every bag feels like a chapter waiting to be written.
From left to right: the Charles & Keith Kerry Top Handle Satchel, the Verafied New York Medium Espresso Suede Club Bag, the Chanel Maxi Flap, and DeMellier London’s The Midi New York. Just a few of the bags currently sitting at the top of my wishlist and occupying more space in my thoughts than they probably should.