Men are often intrigued. My girlfriends sympathize. My back, and my physio, regularly sound the alarm. Me, I sweep it all off with a shrug (when I get there). Speak laughing about "turtle syndrome". From my barda. Inside, almost nothing: a wallet, a phone, keys, my iPod, my passport, a novel, a World of three weeks ago, a bill to settle about the same time, a bottle of water, a lip gloss, handkerchiefs, one or two notebooks, a shell (summer 2008), three shopping lists, a tap joint (to change), a straw chewed by my daughter, sometimes a pair of ballerinas or yoga pants ... my day. My life. My bag.

 I still remember my first moneybag. An ersatz Hermes, model, white varnish. The family album immortalized his first public appearance, around 8 years old. We proudly took the pose, my bag and I, in front of the Arc de Triomphe. And already I slipped my "indispensable": a small beaded purse, a barrette and two Carambar. No what a priori to make a whole bag. And yet, underlines the sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann who has studied the question very seriously (Le Sac, a small world of love, eds JC Lattès, 2011): "Today, the bag and its content in say much more about the person than any other accessory.There is a very strong personal and symbolic investment.The bag is at the same time an extension and an expression of self.Therefore the state of shock in case of theft . "

 Messenger bag and tote

 Let. Ladies' objects, fanfrelches and gluttony would have been my temptations at this age. Absolutely forgivable. But what about the ugly US Army bags and fluorescent nylon bananas in my teenage years? Sacks, tote and shopping bags of all kinds, always bigger, the adult era? And their content ever more abundant? "The bags of today correspond to the woman of today, much more mobile and who has many roles in the day", reassures the stylist Jérôme Dreyfuss. This enthusiast of architecture and contemporary design, adulated people and chic bobos, launched in 2002 its Roots range of luxury. Beautiful skins worked like fabric, soft bags, extensible, with ultrapense details (flashlight, key ring, wallet with detachable wallet ...). "I was fed up with yelling every year with my wife [the stylist Isabel Marant] at the airport, because she was losing our passports in her bazaar!" slips there.

 But what's in the girls' bag? Jerome Dreyfuss imagined for his shops, next January, showcases spreading all their content. Before him, other houses (Chanel, Longchamp, Prada ...) played the game of truth with transparent bags. The mystery always feeds forbidden and fantasies. "While searching for the keys of the car, I searched like a bastard [...] I wanted to know your secrets [...] To make the bag of the ladies is ugly", sings Renaud (In your bag). Others are thrilled to be caught in the bag. "The excitement and pleasure I had in slipping my hand into my wife's bag was less about morality than about erotic emotion. [...] I walked slowly through the inventory, penetrated with love and curiosity, filled with the hope of seeing her finally discover herself whole, undressed of herself ", tells the character of Lars in The Handbag, novel by Marie Desplechin. What's more sensual than Grace Kelly in Hitchcock's Courtyard Window signifying to James Stewart that she's going to spend the night at home by letting slip from her Mark Cross babydoll briefcase and matching mules? A journalist who asked him what he was looking at first in a woman, Woody Allen answered franco: "But it's his bag!"