Carried Away: All About Bags

Chenoune, the editor of Carried Away, and Olivier Saillard, the curator of the accompanying exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Europe's leading fashion and design museum, have organized the unimaginable wealth of bags into several categories. The chapter discussing domestic bags explains the relationship of bags in the contemporary world to those of other cultures and antiquity. In the chapter exploring travelers' bags, the rich variety of this type is discussed, including messengers' bags, knapsacks, wineskins, nomads' sacks, bags for supplies, the 'auto' bag of the 1920s, the 'Gladstone' and the humble tote. Bags for professionals are also considered, including survey bags carried by postmen, plumbers, and other craftsmen, but also, medieval messengers' boxes, seamen's duffles, soldier's leather cartridge bags, and an overview of the design, leatherwork, and production of bags. The chapter devoted to bags as talismans celebrates the cross cultural, psychological, sexual, mythical, and shamanistic significance of bags ranging from Pre-Columbian ritual objects, to pilgrims' bags from the Middle Ages and Native American cosmogony bags. Carried Away surveys the surprising evolution of the useful commonplace bag into a high fashion totem, and suggests that, chameleon-like, the bag continues to change its form and adapt itself to new circumstances and uses.
The Illustrations are gathered from an equally wide variety of sources and media, including traditional fashion photography, decorative arts, painting, ethnographic collections, military museums, and private collections.