Women's Leather Purse Guide

In many countries a purse is known simply as a purse. In the United States, the word usually means a handbag — any bag a woman carries. In Britain and much of the Commonwealth, a purse is specifically the small case carried inside the handbag, for coins and cards. This guide covers the leather purse in both senses, with the emphasis on the smaller article: the coin purse, the frame purse and the wallet-purse, since the handbag sense has its own guide in this section.

The purse is one of the oldest leather goods in existence — a drawstring leather pouch for coins predates pockets by centuries — and leather remains its natural material, because a purse is handled constantly, opened and closed hundreds of times, and stuffed, dropped and dug for daily.

Purse Styles

The kiss-lock or frame purse closes with a metal clasp frame — the classic coin purse, in sizes from a true coin pouch to a full evening purse. The zip purse trades charm for security. The wallet-purse (covered partly in our leather wallets guide) combines card slots, notes sleeve and coin section in one folding case — for many women this is the purse. Evening purses shrink to minaudière and envelope forms in patent, metallic or embossed leather. And in the American sense, the purse as handbag spans every style in the leather handbags guide, from satchel to hobo.

Whichever sense you are shopping in, the purse-specific checks are the clasp and the seams: a frame that clicks shut firmly and evenly, a zip that runs without catching the lining, and stitching that is small, even and unbroken around the stress points of the opening.

Leather for Purses

Purses are small, so makers can afford the best grades on them: full-grain and top-grain cowhide for structure, goatskin for its light weight and pebbled durability, lambskin for soft evening styles. Because a purse lives inside a bag, rubbing against keys and hardware, smooth and pebbled finishes outlast suede and nubuck here; patent and saffiano finishes shrug off the friction best of all.

A lined purse — fabric or suede inside — protects both the leather and the contents; an unlined (rawhide-interior) purse is traditional in vegetable-tanned goods and ages to a rich color inside as well as out.

Care

Empty a purse weekly of receipts and grit, which abrade linings and seams; wipe the outside with a soft cloth; condition smooth leather a few times a year; and store a good purse stuffed lightly, in a dust bag, rather than crushed at the bottom of a drawer. Coin sections stain leather with metal oxides over time — a fabric-lined coin pocket is worth having, and loose coins should never share a pocket with a light-colored lining.

The purse's history is written in its shapes. The medieval girdle pouch hung from a belt because clothes had no pockets; the eighteenth-century reticule was a small decorative bag carried when dresses became too slim for pockets at all; the nineteenth-century miser's purse — long, with sliding rings — guarded coins from both ends; and the frame purse with its kissing clasp descends directly from those metal-framed coin purses. A leather purse today is the heir of all of them: the small, handled, constantly opened container for the money of daily life — which is why, of all small leather goods, it most rewards being made of the best hide.

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