Can fashion do the heavy lifting in politics? The symbolism stitched into a tote

It’s the biggest political handbag since Margaret Thatcher entered 10 Downing Street with her boxy Launer London purse – in all sorts of ways.

“It”, of course, is the black tote carried by Sanae Takaichi, the new prime minister of Japan.

Officially called the Grace Delight Tote, but often referred to simply as the Sanae Tote, it is a leather bag large enough to fit an A4 file.

A simple rectangle with a neat silver clasp at the top and handles long enough to carry over one shoulder or in the crook of an arm, it is made by Hamano, a Japanese “leather crafts” company founded in 1880.

Saori Masuda, the editor of 10 Magazine Japan, called it the “Asprey of Japan”, referring to the heritage London leather-goods house beloved of the British aristocracy.

It is available in nine different colour combinations and retails for ¥136,400 yen (approximately RM386).

It is, in other words, in no way unusual except for one thing – it is carried by the leader of a Group of 7 country, a job that usually does not involve lugging a handbag.

Before Takaichi’s election, it was almost impossible to think of a prominent female politician who actually carried a bag.

Giorgia Meloni, the first female prime minister of Italy, does not. Claudia Sheinbaum, the first female president of Mexico, does not.

Kamala Harris, the first female vice president of the US, did not. Neither did Angela Merkel during her time in office as the chancellor of Germany.

Ditto Hillary Clinton. Even Liz Truss did not carry a bag during her brief tenure as the British prime minister (although when she met Queen Elizabeth II, the queen had her own famous bag with her).

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As to why, and despite the recent popularity for really big bags and the recurring desire of designers to put big bags on their runways, the answer is pretty simple – men in power do not carry briefcases, why should women?

Forgoing a bag simply telegraphs the impression that you have someone else to do the lifting for you.

As Karla Welch, a stylist who worked with Harris at the beginning of her term, said: “They all have bags. It’s just an aide carrying it.” (the television series Veep poked fun at this reality via an assistant to the title character, who was known variously as her “bag man” and her “body man”).

That’s why, in the final season of Succession, one character mocks another’s date for carrying a “ludicrously capacious” handbag to a family gathering.

Her large Burberry bag served to symbolise her misunderstanding of the semiology of the rich and powerful, where membership means no one need schlep so much stuff on their own shoulders.

Generally, the more important the person, the smaller the bag. Now Takaichi is changing the calculus.

Emi Kameoka, the fashion director of Vogue Japan, said that Takaichi’s bag serves to underscore her image as a professional woman and reinforces her campaign promise to “work and work and work and work”.

It can hold both files and tablets, and it telegraphs elegance and utility.

Whether Sanae Takaichi’s tote will make its mark the same way other handbags have in political history remains to be seen. Photo: The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP

Indeed, Hamano sells the Grace Delight Tote as the bag that “answers the desires of career-minded women”.

It is also classically Japanese, Masuda said, with Hamano having been known primarily for supplying the imperial family.

And though, as she noted, the company was previously favoured by “very conservative, non-fashion-forward women”, Takaichi’s patronage has brought it to the attention of a new generation of consumers who see her choice of the bag as a gesture of national pride.

Not to mention a through line that connects Takaichi to her self-professed political hero, Thatcher, whose attachment to her own bag gave the world the term “handbagging”, meaning a surprise tongue-lashing (Takaichi also has an affinity for blue jackets and pearls, both of which were Thatcher style signatures).

For Thatcher, the handbag was a way of aligning herself with a respectable Everywoman accouterment at a time when part of the country was uncomfortable with the idea of a female leader – and a useful metaphor.

Her bag was the kind of bag, British Vogue declared, carried by “a sensible, well-put-together person, reflective of an organized mind”.

But that’s not all it was.

Edwina Currie, a Conservative member of Parliament and health minister for Thatcher, called the bag the prime minister’s “weapon”.

Thatcher herself referred to it as the only “leak proof” place in her government.

In 2013, Cynthia Crawford, her onetime personal assistant, wrote a piece in The Guardian noting that “anything that was highly secretive or precious, we would put in her handbag because we knew she was never parted from it.”

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The bag became such an effective shorthand for the woman who owned it that in 1988, during Thatcher’s final state visit with Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, then secretary of state, gave her a replica of her bag to mark her entry into what he called “the Grand Order of the Handbag”.

In 2011, an Asprey bag she carried during an earlier visit sold for US$39,800 (RM165,400) at a charity auction. By the time she left office, the bags had become, according to the Margaret Thatcher Center, “potent symbols of her unyielding authority.”

Whether Takaichi’s bag will have the same staying power, influence and historical resonance remains to be seen.

But it has already inspired a spike in sales, as well as numerous breathless reports about a “nationwide craze” and “viral sensation”.

“People are paying attention to what she is wearing, much more than they did for male politicians,” Kameoka said.

And this particular accessory is, by dint of its size, impossible to miss.

Indeed, according to the Hamano website, the company has had so many requests for the black Grace Delight Tote that its current production run is sold out, and the company is “currently receiving orders equivalent to approximately 10 months’ worth of factory production”.

Hamano currently plans to ship the bag at the end of August next year. – ©2025 The New York Times Company

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.