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At JOUISSANCE, we’re enamoured with personal objects that have a veil of mystery. We’ve always considered a handbag to be such: an intimate, somewhat sacred vessel that contains both the practical (keys, phone and wallet) and the pleasurable (everything else). Over time, these supposedly non-essential items become essential to how we experience our day-to-day in a greater sense: our keepsakes, letters, notepads, worn books that we’ve yet to finish, lucky charms and beauty essentials we would feel lost without, that can bring us back to ourselves or transport us somewhere else entirely.
In 1979, in her essay collection The White Album, Joan Didion revealed her exacting travel list (below), which she separated into two organised categories: ‘To Pack and Wear’, and ‘To Carry’. For many years during this decade she had this list typewritten and taped to the inside of her closet door in Malibu — which proved to be an efficient tool at a period in her life when she was consistently out reporting and interviewing sources for her magazine articles on location. As Didion explained: “the list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do.”
To Pack and Wear:
2 skirts
2 jerseys or leotards
1 pullover sweater
2 pair shoes
stockings
bra
nightgown
robe
slippers
cigarettes
bourbon
Bag with:
shampoo
toothbrush and paste
Basis soap
razor
deodorant
aspirin
prescriptions
Tampax
face cream
powder
baby oil
To Carry:
mohair throw
typewriter
2 legal pads
pens
files
house key
Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne at LAX airport in 1966
The White Album, Joan Didion
When looking at other people’s bags, we normally focus on their exterior. And yet, it is their insides that are far more fascinating, far more valuable. They contain pieces that you deem precious, which define you on some level. We’ve long felt that the beauty items we carry with us, whether selected from a makeup collection or a signature scent, have an energising power. They provide us with comfort when we seek it, a character to embody, or even creative inspiration.
Last year, the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith shared, in an interview, her handbag essentials, adopting Mary Poppins-esque in maximalism. In the mix (alongside our favourite newspaper subscriptions), she calls out the beauty staple she’d rarely leave the house without.
In the 2000 coffee table book, Contents, the late handbag designer Kate Spade was far more interested in presenting a visual archive of what’s in creative women’s bags: including editors, authors, curators, fashion stylists and music executives. While each intimate portrait was totally different and telling, featuring everything from family photographs to old dinner recipes, they were united in one thing: their shared love of beauty. Be it their favourite scent. A beautiful lipstick. Nail buffers. Lip balms. Luxurious hair combs. Their on-the-go touch-up of choice that would always travel with them.
Inside author Helen Gurley Brown's handbag, from Kate Spade's 2000 coffee table book Contents
Throughout her life, Jane Birkin preferred abundance over neatness. Her signature packing style? Beautifully chaotic. One clip in Agnès Varda’s documentary film Jane B Par Agnes V in the late 1980s shows her taking great pride in emptying her wildly overflowing Hermes handbag onto Parisian steps, with the backdrop of the Eiffel tower. Here, she reveals a constellation of mementos and everyday items she refused to leave her home without.
More is more: loose letters, novels (including a copy of Dostoevsky’s Le Joueur), reading glasses, black ink, keys, Sellotape, a Swiss army knife, pens, matches, medicine, lighters, notebooks and more that remains concealed to the watchful eye.
Jane B Par Agnes V, 1988 (Agnes Varda)
Perhaps one of the most shocking literary examples of “packing” can be seen in Oscar Wilde’s play in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest. When Lady Bracknell discovers that Jack Worthing, her daughter’s suitor, was discovered as a baby in a handbag.
Jack: Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a handbag — a somewhat large, black leather handbag, with handles to it — an ordinary handbag, in fact.
Absurd as this may seem, it speaks to what a handbag represents: a container that has a complex inner life. Useful and meaningful to you, and likely you alone. Full of memory, daily rituals and sentimental items to smell, play with, read, scribble one’s random thoughts and ideas in. Keeping us closer to things we desire the most when we’re in public, wherever we may find ourselves.
portable, precise, personal.
A perverse twist on a lover’s bouquet.
"It was while writing a Diary that I discovered how to capture living moments," Anaïs Nin wrote. "In the Diary I only wrote of what interested me genuinely, what I felt most strongly at the moment, and I found this fervour, this enthusiasm produced a vividness which often withered in the formal work. Improvisation, free association, obedience to mood, impulse, brought forth countless images, portraits, descriptions, impressionistic sketches, symphonic experiments, from which I could dip at any time for material."
In tribute to Anaïs Nin, one of our foremost inspirations for Jouissance, our DIARY captures our most treasured moments, our obsessions and preoccupations, our research and the lessons we learn, and the work of our cherished friends and collaborators.
