Ravenwood - 03/04/05 06:45 AM
Urban blue-state metrosexual men are starting to carry purses, thus ensuring the extinction of the modern blue-state metrosexual movement.
Wallets, cell phones, keys, PDAs, laptop computers - even the deepest of pockets can't hold everything the average guy is hauling around these days. While no-frills nylon gym totes or ho-hum pleather business cases would suffice, men are increasingly open to carrying a bag with a bit of style ... something more refined.Um. I beg to differ. Save for a gym bag, it's hard to look manly with anything that has a shoulder strap. And pardon me for saying so, but these guys don't sound very masculine. When's the last time you used the word 'sumptuous'?Enter the murse - a masculine version of the purse.
"It's a matter of practicality and fashion," says Cargo magazine's style director Bruce Pask, who personally favors Lambertson Truex's collection of sumptuous leather and canvas bags. But since the market is brimming with offerings of sleek designer satchels from the likes of Gucci or Bottega Venetta and simple structured carryalls from Jack Spade and Manhattan Portage, men in the market for a murse or manbag can be choosy.I could get a collector grade M1 Garand for $1200. (And point it at his joker and force him to carry my shit around.)Or not.
Constantine Karonis, 25, who lives in Manhattan, estimates he owns about 15 bags. "I've been carrying one since high school," he says.
His favorite is a slim, checkerboard-print Louis Vuitton shoulder bag that retails for about $1,200.
And they make fun of us here guys in the South?
Hat tip to Spoons.
Category: Oddities
Comments (8) top link me
My range bag has a shoulder strap (basically because it's a gym bag conscripted to heavier duty). Of course, if that guy carried a .357, a few hundred rounds for it, and a few hundred rounds of 7.62x54R in it, then... well, at least I'd keep my mouth shut about the manpurse.
I don't know if I'd get the collector grade M1, or a rack grade, tons of ammo, and maybe a no-frills 1911. That's the way to go. Drool.
There's something so wrong about that. You post about a man purse, and I end up drooling over the screen. Should I be worried?
Posted by: Nate at March 4, 2005 8:32 AMI wonder what would get me more looks. Carrying a purse or a Garand.
Posted by: Steve at March 4, 2005 8:37 AMDamn, I got a mint Ruger Super-Blackhawk .44 Magnum for only a third of the price that Constantine paid for his Louis Vuitton (which I would pronounce as Lewis Vutton, just to piss him off)
I'm sorry, but Constantine Karonis is not a metrosexual. I assure you that we have already found a word to describe a man with 15 purses.
Let's just say that his idea of "hanging out with the guys" is probably much different than ours.
Posted by: roger at March 4, 2005 8:47 AMA "murse"?
Reminds me of this:
"Bro's no good. Too ethnic."
"You got something better?"
"How about the Mansiere?"
"Mansiere."
"That's right. A brassiere for a man."
From "Seinfeld", of course.
Posted by: Steve Scudder at March 4, 2005 8:51 AMI carry a bag with me everywhere I go. Of course mine has MY BALLS IN IT. But if these fellas need a substitute, I understand.
Posted by: Nick Bourbaki at March 4, 2005 10:39 AMPersonally, I prefer wearing a photographer's vest most of the time to carry everything in, My favorite is one I got at Razor Limit (http://www.store.yahoo.com/razorlimit1/index.html).
It is a copy of one that Banana Republic used to have almost thirty years ago; back when they sold travel clothes instead of yuppieware.
If you need a purse to carry around all your shit, get rid of some of your shit. I carry a bag with a shoulder strap -- it is my laptop bag. It isn't "sumptious". It is ballistic nylon and utilitarian. I have three things with shoulder straps -- my laptop bag, my gym bag, and my SKS.
Why don't these dandies carry briefcases like real men?
Posted by: Phelps at March 4, 2005 12:29 PMget rid of some of your shit
Thanks Phelps. Glad someone finally said it . . . its a fight I have with my wife all the time and one of those points of nature that truly seperates men from women.
That said, I do admit to owning a couple of items with shoulder straps. First, I have a laptop computer bag. I also have a duffle/range bag. And I have a number of backpacks. All have shoulder straps, but somehow I don't think those are the kind of shoulder strapping bags these metro sexuals are really wearing.
Posted by: countertop at March 7, 2005 11:32 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
