You know, we were chatting in the car today, about those defining moments – when you know you are moving from one world to the next… We spied a young girl all dressed up in high heels, heaps o make-up, hand-on-hip, unconvincingly smoking a cigarette with a great many puffs of smoke and squinting eyes and coughing. All attitude, but no clue – a bit of an accident waiting to happen.
It really reminded me of when i was about 12 – and all i wanted was to carry a handbag without looking like i was a 12 year old carrying a handbag. I really-so-very-desperately wanted to look sophisticated, and blase and cool. I’d studied the form (Dolly and TigerBeat) – it seemed easy enough.
I remember my handbag was white vinyl, with gold loops and a skinny strap. It came from the variety section of our local supermarket. I didn’t wear makeup yet – so i wasn’t even sure what to put in it. I looked in my mum’s – but there was heaps of stuff i couldn’t even fathom in there – grown up stuff. The bills seemed good though, so I stuffed a few envelopes into my bag for good measure. A notebook seemed a smart idea, and a can of Impulse would have been good too – but it didn’t fit. So it was Maybelline Flavoured Lipgloss, a biro and some chocolate. My teeny kiss-lock purse just fitted, crammed with money I’d earnt working at the local video shop – when they still rented BETA movies, as well as VHS. (Dixons’s Caravan Park General Store, Port Hedland, WA).
No matter how haughtily I tossed my flicks, I felt a bit silly. Was the bag strap too long? Was it meant to bump my leg when I walked? Should i hook my thumb around it so it didn’t bump around? Should it be bulging with things or just all empty looking? Should it go over my shoulder or right across, like when you put your head through the strap? How do you manage that without looking stupid? How do you do this handbag thing?! Furtive glances at reflection in shop windows…. Argh!
Within a couple of years, i progressed to loose notes and lippy shoved into my Faberge jeans. I didn’t care about handbags anymore – just about boys and cars and having nice white sandshoes.
The Faberge era was thus followed by the carefully packed handbag – just in case CLEO magazine stopped me in the street and did that ‘What’s in her handbag’ photo-expose – because you want to be sure to have your Yves Rocher sample pots and Jean Nate bodyspray on board then. I often carried a little book full of angsty, mushy poems i had written too, harbouring the secret ambition of being ‘discovered’ via Dolly magazine’s poetry pages.
NOW – my handbag is always packed with a rollicking good time – i don’t care what people think – there’s heaps of crap in there, lint, receipts, wind-up crocodiles, snacks and stickers. NOW I just want to be sure to have everything i need to make everyone happy! So pleased i grew up and learnt how to carry a handbag. Phew.
xx mikes
Oh, I remember these days all too well!
I had a bit of a surfer girl meets Saddle Club meets bogan look going on in the mid 80s.
I remember so well self consciously carrying my first handbag.
I have to admit to have never quite getting the “how to hold the handbag”. I still feel quite awkward carrying them. That’s why I love the Crumpler, it tells me how I should carry it.
Oh Pip, this is such a funny post! I’m sure you looked lovely in the awkward way that all almost teens do. I think I safely bipassed the vinyl handbag phase and went on to make my own tye-dyed bags. Thinking back, they were pretty cool and I would still use them now except I think they must have fallen apart!
wonderful post! those self-conscious teen feelings are universal:) i had similar problems wearing high heels… that persist to this day! thanks for the smiles!!
Pip, what a great post. I have been laughing and laughing. I was exactly the same. What flavour was your maybelline lip gloss, mine was cherry!! As for the faberge jeans – were yours stretch? Mine were. I thought I was just sooo cool!!! And of course you always had to have the regulation can of impulse on you (although my mum always told me that it wasn’t a real deoderant – just a cover up) My favourite reading at the time was Dolly too and I still have some of my love poems hidden away somewhere.
You’ve just taken me back to days of staggers jeans, hot tuna pants, cherry lane cardies and rip curl t-shirts~ all a 13 yo aspiring surfie chick needs… Thanks…
Hey Pip, I had a purple buckle bag in grade 6, these were big in Adelaide. I put all my Michael Jackson badges on it, they were from a showbag, and I did feel rather cool.
Always was a tomboy though, and I went for pockets over bags, felt a bit overdressed with the bag.
Then there were years of being a practical bike messenger, backpacks reigned supreme, but when I hit my 30’s I decided it was time to grow up.
Now I have a fab red leather bowling bag, filled with all the accoutrements of being the parent of a 3 year old. And my pet peeve is when his water bottle leak in the bottom of my bag, eeewww!
oh! heartpangs! what to put in my handbag?! i used to collect 60’s handbags from op shops when i was 14 – and the pain of having “credible” things therein! these days, its more what NOT to take…
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wow. you just expressed all my pre-teenage angst and worries completely!!
Mum used to always give me a small handabg to carry around when i was little- which generally held a few 50c coins and a hanky.
I remember getting up the courage to ask mum how old she was when she first used a “big girls” handbag. I remember her looking at me weirdly with a tear in her eye. and then the next day there was brand new “big girl handbag” on my bed…I still only used it for 50c peices and hankies for ages though!!
Such a wonderful post,these moments I have allll day when I watch my two daughters age 19 and 16 and I start to ponder what I was like at that age.sigh…all stages in life are precious.thank you for a wonderful post!xoxo