These images of modern woman, independently negotiating Parisian boulevards in groups or alone, reveal the various handbag designs that were fashionable c1912. A purse was suspended from the wrist(or from a ring worn round one finger), metal-framed leather handbags had multiple compartments and or woman carried pouch bags. The woman dashing to the library (whom we might have expectedto don blue stockings) carries a music, or attache, case.