Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

I’ve seen a lot of young men wearing bags these days. And I’ve been told men’s bags are finally popular. Well, I seem to have missed a fashion trend. Once again.

Men used to wear bags in the 80s, too. But then, their bags were handbags which tended to be smaller and the clip was around men’s wrists.

Women and men were more equal in the 80s, at least as far as bag size is concerned: women’s bags tended to be smaller, too. While men wore it as practical extension of their pant pockets, women used it as decoration, going well with the teased out hair and generally they were made to be worn rather than carried.

Today this is different. Women’s bags have gotten bigger. Maybe it’s just that there is more stuff to carry, including all the new electronic gizmos women now tend to carry around.

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek interpretation of these gender-specific changes in wearing a bag:

1) Female Empowerment: Today’s women not only have the ability to easily carry everything with them wherever they go. They tend to do so by carrying the bags in their elbows, which makes them look like they are flexing their muscles, a true visual cue for men that they are emancipated and powerful (see photo above).

2) Masculinity shift: Men, put under pressure by emancipated women, now have to take a step forward, or actually backward to cowboy times: their bags look like gun holsters – just to avoid being emasculated …

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