Tongue in Chic: Bags say more about your personality than you think

In January, I became obsessed with procuring a brown leather tote bag. To me, they symbolized growing up: A graduation from my brightly-hued backpack, which was an essential possession for every sophisticated young female professional. I perused everywhere, from Madewell to Mansur Gavriel, until I settled on a beautifully woven leather tote from Greece-based Etsy shop Milloo. 

I brought the bag to interviews and internships, situations where my Mokuyobi backpack seemed puerile and out of place. In a sea of luxurious Italian leather, the scarlet nylon was a flashing alarm that screamed, “I am still a student!” The tote bag fit right in with all the Goyards and Louis Vuittons, but I never felt comfortable hoisting it around on my arm. I felt like an impostor, a fraud, a little girl dressing up in her mom’s oversized heels. 

Bags become an extension of yourself, more so than any other item in your wardrobe.

After all, I don’t wear the same clothes every day, but I carry the same backpack with me day in and day out. They’re a vessel for transporting all your life essentials — phone, keys and wallet, of course; but also, if you’re anything like me, lip balm, pens, bobby pins, hand sanitizer, notebooks, loose change, Post-it notes, rubber bands, multiple chargers, weeks-old receipts and who knows what else. 

The “What’s in My Bag?” craze challenge that swept YouTube a few years ago –— and still populates the platform to this day — was such a hit precisely because by digging around and revealing the detritus you’ve accumulated, you reveal what kind of person you are. 

Your bag says something about you. Bags have always been a status symbol — think of the obvious luxury designer handbags from Chanel and Hermès. But even in elementary school, the kind of backpack you carried signified whether you were in or out, whether you were cool and in-the-know or whether you were an oblivious ignoramus. 

At first, rolling backpacks were all the rage, and I begged my parents to let me pick one out from the luggage store at the local mall. The backpack hooks lining the buildings of my elementary school went disregarded and unused. Instead, there would be a row of rolling backpacks all lined up shoulder to shoulder, their handles still jutting into the air. 

But all of a sudden, once middle and high school rolled around, rolling backpacks fell out of favor. They were babyish and infantile. We were old now, and it was time we started acting like it. 

The cool thing to do was to stuff your bag with all your textbooks and cause as much strain on your shoulders as possible — but only one shoulder at a time because wearing both straps at once was lame. Slinging your backpack over one shoulder affected a breezy nonchalance that none of us possessed but all of us desperately wanted to project.

Nowadays, at USC, I come across bags of all shapes and sizes. Some signal your membership within an exclusive group, such as those emblazoned with sorority letters. Others are a little more subtle with what they broadcast about their owners.

The free tote bag you get with your trial subscription to the New Yorker means you’re a pseudo-intellectual. A hefty, industrial outdoors backpack means you discovered rock climbing two years ago and now it’s your life. A “cute” backpack shaped like a cat or a dragon or something means you like to shop on AliExpress. A transparent backpack means you really, really want to get robbed. A navy blue Jansport backpack means you have no personality. 

So, what does your bag say about you? 

Kitty Guo is a senior writing about fashion. Her column “Tongue in Chic” runs every other Wednesday.