I reach out to a friend whose dainty clutches I’ve always admired for her advice. “You must optimize your life so you don’t have to carry things around,” she tells me. “Everything should have a place, and there’s a place for everything.” Holly Golightly, patron saint of sprightly urban dwelling, my friend reminds me, kept her lipstick in her mailbox—“smart thinking!” It seems, though, that I’m a bit late to formulate a “live lightly” philosophy when it comes to what we carry. “Most people would agree that a phone is their most essential item,” says Stuart Vevers, the executive creative director at Coach. “It supports so many functions now that we need to carry a little bit less overall.” The timeless baguette, Silvia Venturini Fendi informs me, was born out of her conviction that “women just wanted a small bag that could hold all the deemed essentials.”
“Take what you need and leave the rest up to chance,” says Brother Vellies founder Aurora James. “Go quickly. Don’t hold on to the things that don’t serve you. Maybe take a mask.”
With these admonishments in mind, I set out to test a few models that I never would have considered in my prior pack-mule life. First up is James’s own creation, Brother Vellies’s Lijadu Billfold, a structured rectangle with a few warm hand-carved Kenyan hardwood loops accenting the strap. Of all the purses I have gathered, its precisely ordered interior does the most to assuage my downsizing anxiety: It wields multiple credit-card slots, a zippered pocket, even a mirror stitched into the top flap.
The next day before drop-off, I transition to a classic quilted Chanel flap bag. It’s smaller and more formal than anything I would usually wear, but I find myself drawn to the metal-and-leather chain-link strap, which seems like something a chic librarian on the Upper West Side would use to secure her reading glasses. The chain glints subtly in the late fall sun, and I can’t remember the last time I put on something with a bit of sparkle. The rectangular base reminds me of the solid, comforting spine of a book, and out of a vestigial habit born of long subway rides, I attempt to wedge in a reissue of Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark, a title that seems appropriate to our times. (No go—Kindle it is.)