Kropphra

Handbags started out as pouches and by the late 18th leather travel bags were fashionable for both men and women who were travelling any distance from home. As the nineteenth century progressed the pouch and reticule became very similar to the handbags that we know today. During the twentieth century handbags became ever more popular and the big fashion houses in Paris were again at the forefront of fashion design.Designers also matched shoes and handbags at their catwalk shows, again these items were made especially for certain clients, usually the rich and famous. By the nineteen twenties almost every woman, whatever her class, carried some kind of handbag.The fashion in handbags led to designers creating whole ranges of accessories to go with a woman’s shoes and bag for the season. Accessories included a contrast of matching hat, scarf and gloves, and in the summer there were sandals and from the nineteen sixties sunglasses also became a huge fashion accessory.Nowadays celebrities are big trend setters and ordinary women who want to wear the same sort of clothes bags, have to content themselves with good replicas or cheap ‘knockoff’ copies. Many designers feel that this is bad for them and their creations, and they are trying to make the practise of selling what are known as ‘knockoffs’ illegal.