What's a bag like you doing in a place like this? - Amsterdam's Museum of Bags and Purses

A bag on display in the bathroom of the Museum of Bags and Purses

I counted every day of 2008 with a page-a-day purse calendar. My high school email account was thepurseaholic and I started carrying a handbag in the 6^th grade. Though I’ve become less fanatical about purses, I couldn’t wait to go to the Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam. The museum splits its permanent collection over two floors: the third floor houses the bags from the 16^th to 19^th centuries while the second floor displays the bags from 1900 to the present day. The guide suggested starting my tour on the third floor and making my way down from there. I climbed the spiral staircase with high expectations.

The collection starts with a couple medieval bags and early tie-on pockets. Although historically interesting, these bags weren’t an aesthetically exciting introduction to the collection. Plain and practical quickly turned into more decorative as the exhibition moved forward in time. The post-1800 purses had unbelievably fine details, and the museum did a fantastic job of choosing bags still in good condition. The larger cases would usually contain about ten to twenty purses of a particular material and time period. Many of the earlier purses were made of wood, metals or glass beading with pastoral or floral patterns, but often these tiny details were hard to see under the dim lighting. Many of these bags had tiny portraits and miniscule metalworking on clasps and chains, and the poor lighting diminished the full visual effect of this craftsmanship. A lot of the cases had overhead lighting, and the bags towards the top of the case would leave the bags below them in shadow. This issue persisted on the floor with the post-1900 purses as well.

Another issue that spanned both floors was the lack of clear labels for the individual purses. Many purses had no indication of date or artist and some entire displays lacked identification for all of its items. One beautiful matching set of gloves, fan, purse, snuff case and buttonhook had no label whatsoever. The set had silver detailing with black satin or silk, but it was harder to enjoy the set without knowing what decade, or even century, it came from. The second floor also had a beautiful display of about ten fans, but again no sign (in Dutch or English) explained where the fans came from or what they were doing next to the Art Deco purses.  Clear labeling would’ve helped immensely.

The methodology of showcasing purses based on material and time period that worked well enough for the first half of the museum fell apart for the post-1900 purses. The general categories like “Evening Bags” didn’t have the same specificity as ivory purses within a specified time period. It was hard to view the display as a unified collection when the bags were only vaguely related to the other bags in the case. The case of bags by modern (post 1950s) famous designers also suffered from an overly general organizing idea. If the purses were arranged by decade or designer you could get a sense of trends or changing fashions, but the museum used neither time nor artist to organize the wall length case. Chanel bags sat scattered throughout, and designs from the 70s sat next to bags from 2011. 

As disappointing as the staging was- the actual bags were fantastic. The cruise-liner-purse, sitting in a display with other purses shaped like objects, caught my eye. The very angular black leather bag had a clasp designed to look like the smokestacks of a ship. As I gazed at the subtle pleating towards the hull, I realized I had seen this bag in my purse-a-day calendar. As I reexamined the other bags in the case, I remembered seeing many of them in the calendar as well. With all these beautiful bags in one place, the museum had the chance to showcase particular designs or constructions through bright lighting or separate cases for single remarkable purses, but the museum opted instead for poorly lit and loosely organized displays. The Museum of Bags and Purses succeeded in getting a wonderful collection of bags and purses, but it the staging didn’t amplify the beauty and detailing of the bags. They had the goods, but didn’t know how to show them.