Shopping bags. You're given one at the checkout. You carry stuff home in them. Then throw them away, or keep them under the sink to use as rubbish bags another time. Not me…. the stakes are much higher. Plastic carrier bags are perhaps the most efficient way of conveying your brand status to another person, after all, it's not just the things you buy that matter, but where you bought them from. The same item bought from Selfridges or Liberties or John Lewis or, gulp, Debenhams certainly says a lot about your lifestyle and your aspirations, so one has to get it right.

Having the correct carrier bag in the playground was extremely important when I was at school. Carrying your books in a brown paper Next bag (Next being reasonably cool for teenagers in my area back then) was a standard entry point to the popular set. Keeping the bag uncrumpled and out of the rain was an art form in itself, and once the things did eventually give way, my friends and I would venture down the local shopping centre (late night Thursday at the shopping centre was our Saturday night down the pub) and persuade the sniffy assistants in Next to give us some more. Turning up to school with a plain plastic bag was something you just did not do. Like being seen with your parents or admitting you might be gay, the repercussions among peers was so severe that you simply had to play by the rules, though who set these cast iron rules, I never did quite find out.



I've calmed down a little since then, throwing my carrier bag collection away during my mid-twenties, but I still keep a few choice specimens tucked away for emergencies (what constitutes as shopping bag emergency I'm not quite sure). As a teenagers, the bag is used to shock and awe with the flashiest, most aspirational brand possible (these days the humble Next has been succeeded by Gucci or Burberry) because we want to prove that we are not poor. Moving into adulthood, it becomes important to not only have money, but to spend it with taste (Gucci is too flashy, Selfridges is better). Into middle age, the tastes and aspirations become more refined, and we like to assert our cultural sophistication, perhaps adding a Tate Gallery bag to the Selfridges. And when the race to earn cash, pair off and propagate is over, and the end looms into sight, priorities shift to worldly issues and thus the Tesco re-useable Bag For Life. There you have it, a life in carrier bags.

Ok, that’s a bit of a joke, but I believe will all adhere to these codes in some shape or form. I know my friends would disapprove if I turned up to meet them holding certain bags, I have caught strangers admiring me with them, and you certainly receive different treatment from shop staff according to the grandeur of your bag. Try browsing around your favourite clothes store with a placcy bag from Costcutter and you'll see what I mean.



The only problem with said shopping bags is that they inevitably stretch, tear and disintegrate. Which is why we now have the Shopper; all the showy branded goodness of a carrier bag with the durability of a handbag. And they're free!

Carrying a store bag around with you after it's initial lifespan (from the shop back to the home) not only advertises that you once bought something from a certain shop, but that you are proud of that purchase, you are happy to be judged by that purchase and that you'll most likely be repeating the process again sometime soon. It sounds like a joke, I know, but faced with a choice of five branded shopping bags, I bet most people would opt for the one that best defines/ least embarrasses them every time.