I have always had a horror of handbags. I attribute it to my mother (I try not to blame things on my parents because parents do the best they can, but this one is inescapable).

Mum always carried a handbag, at least in my memory. A capacious handbag with many pockets in which a plethora of things could be kept but not easily found. There were frequent occurrences where Mum would rifle frantically through her handbag for a critical item – wallet, sunglasses, keys – while I waited, irritably.

As a result of my dislike of Mum's handbags, I swore never to own one. At school, I opted for a pack rather than a satchel, because packs could easily be carried (including on a bicycle). I loved my bright blue Taz pack. I suppose one could equate a pack and a handbag; I don't.

My dislike of handbags increased as I discovered sexism in clothing. Why did men get clothing with pockets so they could carry their keys and money in their pockets, while women's clothing forced women to need an extra bag in which to carry essential items? Not fair! Even worse, some women's clothing has pretend pockets!!

Moreover, handbags make you vulnerable – you have all your valuable possessions in a small bag easily snatched from you. After I was assaulted with a brick in London, I was very happy to tell the police I had no handbag.

"No handbag, I never carry one," I said.

"We found a lady's wristwatch and some raffle tickets in his pocket," the police officer said. "Were they yours?"

"My wallet and keys were zipped into the pockets of my leather jacket. I don't use ladies watches and I never buy raffle tickets because I think they're like gambling," I replied.

Was the officer thinking, She's quite opinionated, even with a multi-centimetre head wound leaking blood?

-------------------------------------------------------------

It turns out the earliest known handbag was carried by a man – Ötzi the iceman who lived around 3200BC on the current Austrian-Italian border. Handbags have been found in ancient Egyptian sites and Greeks used handbags – the word 'purse' is derived from the Greek word 'byrsa', which was a bag for storing coins.

In Europe, both men and women used handbags up till the 1700s to carry coins. By the end of the 1700s, handbags were becoming smaller, to fit with the more slender shape in clothing that was becoming a trend. Men, however, didn't go with the mini-handbag fashion. Instead, men's clothing started to incorporate pockets, so no bag was necessary.

Supposedly, the current type of handbag became common in the mid-1800s, partly as the result of people travelling by train and needing a 'travelling case' that was sufficiently robust and capacious to take what was needed on the journey while one's main luggage was stored. A British industrialist, Samuel Parkinson (he made butterscotch), ordered a travelling case for his wife and HJ Cave of London produced the first reported modern set of luxury handbags.

My musings on handbags were prompted by a RadioNZ article on handbags – asking if you would pay $29,000 for a Hermès Birkin handbag. No point asking me, as I wouldn't pay $1 for a handbag. However, it turns out $29,000 is a budget luxury handbag – you can pay over $3.8 million for the Mouawad jeweller's 1001 Nights purse adorned with over 4,000 diamonds. Hermès is just one of a fleet of brands of exceptionally expensive handbags, including Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Christian Dior, Céline, Fendi, Gucci, Judith Leiber, Tom Ford and Givenchy.