What to do with your hands?

Bags and pouches, worn at the waist in the Middle Ages, moved over time under the top layers of clothing for protection against theft. As the centuries passed and fashion changed, handbags hidden in the folds of clothing became an integral part of ... men's outfits - as pockets. Men, as the more mobile section of society, sometimes had a great many of them - adapted by their depth and size to accommodate different types of contents.

Women had to cope differently, as their outfits, both formal and everyday, had no or very few pockets (sometimes strictly decorative). The 18th century saw the emergence of the small handbag called the reticule, which is the great-grandmother of all handbags as we know them. It was a response to empire-style dresses-columns, narrow and close to the body, in whose folds nothing could be hidden. It became indispensable for two important reasons - it stored essential items when the lady left the house, and it responded to the age-old human need to 'do something with your hands'.

It wasn't until the 1920s, with the liberation of women from corsets, that outfits with large pockets appeared. Big enough that satisfied ladies could finally stroll around with their hands in their pockets, but that's another story....