Feminine Vessels - Letter from the Editor

A purse is a beautiful burden, but a burden nonetheless. While women’s clothes are not designed with pockets to hold essential items like keys, wallets and phones, it’s also true that even if clothes were equipped with such practical storage, the tools and instruments of performed femininity would mean that pockets would likely be insufficient to carry all that women are expected to have on hand. 

A woman’s purse can be her “universe”, as J.Lo’s character says in The Wedding Planner. A recent Coach ad follows Elle Fanning around the city streets as she pauses time by opening her bag. We are led to believe that the purse offers a space of control in a chaotic world. However, the purse and the items within it are also another category which brands can sell to. 

The purse is a vessel. It’s up to its owner the items and therefore energies that they cultivate within it. We can cultivate our purses to bear the fruits of creativity, ingenuity and curiosity. Or, we can allow our purses to be an instrument to enforce oppressive ideas about appearance, beauty and attractiveness.

The expectations of women to supply, to provide, at times hijack the natural feminine spirit to bring forth life and beauty. The purse is a space from which all that is ever needed by others can be supplied. However, I like to imagine a shift where the purse is an extension of one’s inner world, a space that nurtures fancies and dreams.

This issue’s shoots explore these fantastic worlds, one in which we can be beautiful, feminine, daring and creative all at once. While Lucretzia conveys the gentle and vulnerable inner world of the purse, Purse celebrates its ability to empower us to convey our most fantastic and bombastic self.

This issue is also an exploration of the purse as a space for external representation of self, in both its adornment and contents. The purse can also be considered as a space of performance.

At its best, we can claim the purse as a vessel to carry the tools for our ideas, dreams, and aspirations. At its worst, it’s a vessel to best prepare ourselves to present favorably to the world and align with its expectations. I encourage our readers to imagine what a purse might look like as a container for the ingredients of joy, and more generally how gender-coded accessories and clothing can be reclaimed.