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.”

It was as precise as her prose, a truth that was not lost on her. “It should be clear that this was a list made by someone who prized control,” she wrote. “[who] yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative.”

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

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.

Four or five copies of The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, mostly unread. Three or four books, only one of which I’m reading. A very bright red lipstick. Loose nuts, half a bar of dark chocolate covered in dust, old tissues, a Tampax that somehow is also loose, many shreds of tobacco, an afro pick, a broken lighter, reading glasses, sunglasses, dog bags, a bottle of water with the lid not on properly that will soon leak, my Nokia, many pens without lids, antihistamines.

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.

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.

“Everything’s useful,” Birkin remarked in a later interview detailing the contents of her handbag. “It just weighs a ton!” A stark contrast to a character written in Marguerite Duras’s 1971 novel L’Amour, described as The Woman With Closed Eyes, who carries a handbag that contains nothing but a mirror.

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.

Lady Bracknell: 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.