There's a great scene in series one of Veep, Armando Ianucci's US remake of The Thick Of It, when vice-president Selina Meyer's aide Gary is complimented on his capacious bag by two bored politicians at a reception.
It has 60 interior pockets, Gary tells them, adding boastfully that he can retrieve any of the items contained in those pockets without having to look. Naturally, they test him. He passes with flying colours, as well as with flying eye drops and wet wipes (both plain and scented).
The bag is intended to hold anything the vice-president might need on a typical day out. But it's Gary's bag, so by definition it's a man bag. Which is why it has 60 pockets. Of course you do get handbags which are equally large - Exhibit A: the Birkin bag - but their interiors tend to be a little less military in design. In other words they're not aimed at men. We like pockets to put stuff in.
But if you don't call the second-most powerful politician on the planet boss - lots of men don't - yet you own a capacious man bag - lots of men do - what sort of stuff could that be? Not wet wipes and eye drops, surely?
Well, today being Valentine's Day, it could be a bunch of flowers, some silk underwear, a chilled bottle of champagne and a pair of handcuffs. (You should probably get something for the missus too, so leave room for that.)
Alternatively you could carry no stuff in it at all, because half the point of a man bag is simply to look fashion-forward. So a third option is to combine the best bits of the first two options: do like they do in shops and make your man bag appear to be bursting at the seams with interesting and exotic stuff by filling it with scrumpled-up newspaper. If you're not reading this online, why not use the one you have in your hands?
But if you're serious about your man bag and serious about your stuff, you need to find a serious way to fill those interior pockets. Happily, website Fashion Beans has a list of man bag essentials. These include: a bottle of water, plasters, sunglasses and grooming products like moisturiser, hair gel and "shine control wipes". Oh, and mints. Or is it mince? I need bifocals to see print properly these days.
Casting around elsewhere I find other suggestions ranging from an umbrella and a first-aid kit to clean underwear and a coin purse. To that list you should probably add an iPad, a smartphone and, if you want to be really hip, a Leuchtturm notebooks (far classier than the Moleskine equivalent and no more injurious to moles).
By now our notional man bag is getting a little too heavy so if you can find a bantamweight osteopath, you better pack him or her too. Alternatively, achieve high office. That way you'll have a Gary to carry the thing for you - and he'll be the one with the bad back.
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