Men carrying a purse or handbag

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Many years ago my husband (who is half-French) used to carry a really cool leather man bag. But as time went on the man bag grew a bit the worse for wear and in fact began falling to bits. For some reason he refused to replace it and took to carrying these touristy man-made fibres hip bags. A few years ago I bought him a Prada man bag at Christmas but no way would he wear it. I ended up eventually giving the bag to a delighted friend. DH still has the touristy thing he calls his banana! I think he may have become self-conscious about man bags now that we live in Ireland. I rarely see them here.
 
speaking of Ben Minkoff, i think some of those are so nice looking! my BF likes the PS1, and i bet he'd like the BM stuff too. if we get one for him i'll post a pic :p




Ooooh a PS1. That's a really cool bag Id love to own and would have no problem carrying except for the price. I have one really expensive bag (LV Utah) so I dont think I would spend that much on another.
 
Weirdly enough, my bf is okay with carrying my girly purses. Sometimes, he won't give it back because he wants to save me the trouble of carrying it myself :p
BUT he is against man purses... we recently went to Zara and we saw a nice-looking messenger bag in the mens section. It looked quite nice on him. I was thinking of getting it for him as a Valentine's present but he said no, he absolutely did not want to carry that.
 
As a guy, I love using bags for work or just for daily use. The selection of men's bags for my opinion is some what uninspiring. That's why majority of the time I like investing on women's designer handbags that can be used as "unisex" handbags.

So... My question is if you are someone like me do you ever get a comments like "that bag is a women's handbag" or "why are you using a women's bag?" and if so how do you deal with it?

I ask you this because the other day, I was out for shopping with my mom when we passed by the Celine window store and I just say to her "I love to buy myself a Celine Luggage one day". My Mom knows that I have a thing for handbags but she look at me and say "All bags you are buying are made for women. Why you keep buying bags that are made for women." Little shocked of the way she responded of my wishful thinking (she's a bit hormonal lately because of her age) but I just smiled at her and I told her "Its what I want." sweetly :)

This is not the first time I received a comment or snarl like this I even got one before from a SA when I'm getting my Balenciaga City.
 
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any bag can work for any gender as long as the proportion is right. for example, a Chanel medium flap probably wouldn't look right on a man (like you're carrying a "woman's bag") but a maxi flap probably would. of course if carrying a "woman's bag" is the look you're going for, then who cares what everyone else thinks. be like Pharrell wearing a shorts tuxedo to the Oscars - everyone said it was a fashion don't but he didn't care.
 
Most of the time it doesn't really bothers me but sometimes it just made think me "am I really doing it wrong?" and still ended doing things the way I like it hahaha :)
 
I think it depends on the cultural norms where you live. I'm in Toronto and see a lot of men with LV Speedys and even the occasional LV Alma and they don't look out of place at all. As Apey_Grapy said, proportion is important - to me tiny women with huge bags look 'odder' than men with properly sized bags that happen to have been marketing mainly to women.
 
My mom doesn't really care, my grandma does ask why i carry womens bags. I mostly get compliments from people that are into fashion on my bags, people that aren't into fashion usually question me.
But I agree mostly with what you said. There are a lot of great mens handbags out there don't get me wrong but none of them are iconic like the women's bags. As soon as a designer can make a male bag with as much status and icon power as a lady dior or a 2jours then I'll go buy it.
Truth be told you could put 50 designer mens bags in a room and 50 walmart brand and I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference unless I got super close - there is just no brand recognition.
 
Most of the time it doesn't really bothers me but sometimes it just made think me "am I really doing it wrong?" and still ended doing things the way I like it hahaha :)
I think it's great that you have your personal style. Life's too short to worry about whether you're "doing it wrong" when it comes to pure style choices like carrying bags! I firmly believe that if you have the confidence and personal style then you can carry off anything. Just look at Marc Jacobs and how effortlessly he carries his Birkin.

Actually wasn't there a PurseBlog post on this semi-recently? Lots of pics of Johnny Weir looking fabulous. :cool:
 
I think it's great that you have your personal style. Life's too short to worry about whether you're "doing it wrong" when it comes to pure style choices like carrying bags! I firmly believe that if you have the confidence and personal style then you can carry off anything. Just look at Marc Jacobs and how effortlessly he carries his Birkin.

Actually wasn't there a PurseBlog post on this semi-recently? Lots of pics of Johnny Weir looking fabulous. :cool:


:D thank you silversun :D

And when you think about it a clothing is just piece cloth with tag on it and bag is just bag to carry your stuff. Why confine myself in a box when there much more to explore outside the box. :)

My mom doesn't really care, my grandma does ask why i carry womens bags. I mostly get compliments from people that are into fashion on my bags, people that aren't into fashion usually question me.
But I agree mostly with what you said. There are a lot of great mens handbags out there don't get me wrong but none of them are iconic like the women's bags. As soon as a designer can make a male bag with as much status and icon power as a lady dior or a 2jours then I'll go buy it.
Truth be told you could put 50 designer mens bags in a room and 50 walmart brand and I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference unless I got super close - there is just no brand recognition.


I hear you. For example, I am huge Givenchy fanatic but their men's L.C. handbag collection just bored me to death. Givenchy have some Nightingale men's version but still the design is predominantly from women's version.

I think it depends on the cultural norms where you live. I'm in Toronto and see a lot of men with LV Speedys and even the occasional LV Alma and they don't look out of place at all. As Apey_Grapy said, proportion is important - to me tiny women with huge bags look 'odder' than men with properly sized bags that happen to have been marketing mainly to women.


Definitely cultural norms play a role on what is it & what is not. Back when I'm in Philippines, culture there are bit up tight (fashion wise) compare here in Hong Kong.
 
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