Respect Authority

Does anyone remember mini-backpacks? Remember when they weren’t just the tote of choice for middle-aged women and Kohl’s frequent customers? Remember when mini backpacks were actually in?

Lately I’ve been taking some time to analyze women’s choice of bagware on the subway. This is in part for the day-to-day scientific research necessary to inspire this blog, and in part because I lost my earbuds and am waiting for new ones to arrive in the mail. (It’s for that reason that my scientific study of Female Purse Selection in New York City will end on Apple Earbud Estimated Arrival Date Nov. 10).

It seems a purse can say a lot about you - how much you carry, how important you are, how wealthy, how stylish, how woefully unfashionable and doomed to eternal celibacy, etc. And while styles still emerge from time to time, as of late there has been no massive-scale hot item in the purse arena. Not really since the mini backpack.

And why wouldn’t this little gem be the insurmountable darling of the handbag world? Though today the mini backpack mostly looks childish and disproportionate, to say nothing of tacky, there was a time when it dominated the marketplace. I personally had at least two mini backpacks in my day, one of which I distinctly remember as being some sort of navy plaid, as well as my pride and joy.

Ironically, what looks so woefully I Love The 90s now is actually one of the most practical carry-ons out there. Tiny purses limit the amount of useless crap I can carry around with me 24/7, which is unacceptable, and large shapeless purses make it difficult to distinguish where all that various crap is at any given time, which is also unacceptable. Mini backpacks solved both problems, and don’t even give you the back pain that comes with tossing a 10-pound bag o’ femininity over your left shoulder eight times a day.

It stands to reason that something with both aesthetic (in its time!) and logical value would become so absurdly mainstream that it was doomed to fade out of fashion as quickly as it came. (See down jackets, leg warmers and visors). But I tell you this: if and when I reach a point in my life where I completely stop caring about what I look like in public, there are three things I will acquire: sweatpants, knee-high socks and a mini backpack.