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The Dr. Ruth of handbags

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

My mother never understood why my grandmother was so loath to let her bag out of her sight, noting that Granny really didn’t have anything much to put in it. Maybe she just liked the bag itself. A fondness for handbags is something that I share with my late grandmother; I also inherited her disconcerting habit of refusing to leave my purse unattended.
However, unlike Granny I have good reason not to let my pocketbook out of my sight. In common with most women of my generation, my handbag is far from empty. On the contrary, it is best described as a portable vortex of chaos; items sucked in have scarce hope of emerging unscathed, if at all. For women today the handbag is no longer a mere accessory. It is our life-support system. The average woman’s handbag these days will contain most, if not all, of the following: a wallet, pens, travel card, various sets of keys, mobile phone, makeup, checkbook, Palm Pilot, notepad, sunglasses, chewing gum, mints.
Now this is bad enough if you have only one life-supporting receptacle to cope with. But the days of one-design-fits-all occasions are long gone. This is where the trouble usually starts. Girls, how many times have you stood at the top of the bus frantically rummaging through your overstuffed purse for the ever-elusive travel card? As you grow redder of face, the line behind you grows increasingly hostile until finally you admit defeat and struggle off the bus puce-faced with mortification. What follows is a ritual as old as time. You slowly and painfully remove each item from your bag and place it upon the ground. Normally at this point it begins to rain, and it is at that exact moment that you remember, “It’s in my other bag.”
And what’s the solution? Well, most women’s magazines assume that we’re all budding Martha Stewarts and should organize our handbags the night before. Whoops, sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing. If you know what bag you’ll be using the following day, it goes without saying that you also know what outfit you’re going to wear. Puh-leeze! Only St. Martha and about six other working women on the planet are that organized, so that’s a complete non-starter. For years now, I’ve pursued the alternative, which is to use the same bag every day, and carefully dust the legions of unused purses that sit around the house like trophy brides, pretty, expensive, but ultimately fairly useless.
Well, not any longer. Those girls are gonna start earning their keep, thanks to the ingenuity of Nancy Jane Carson. Never heard of her? Roll over, Martha, this woman is the patron saint of handbag lovers everywhere. Nancy Jane, or N.J., as she prefers to be called, is the brains behind the Purseket. Like the best inventions, this one is simplicity itself.
Purseket is a flexible panel covered with fabric that conforms to the inside of your handbag. Yes, girls, you heard me right, it conforms to your needs. The Purseket is sectioned into pockets and has a wee post for hanging your keys on. Not only can you transfer all of your stuff easily from one bag to the other, but you can also do a very quick inventory before you leave the house to ensure everything is where it should be. As timesavers go, this beats a dishwasher, and retails at a mere fraction of the cost.
Driven mad by being unable to find anything in her own handbag, Carson came up with the prototype Purseket in her sewing room. Delighted with the results, Carson decided to share the wealth and in Christmas 2001 “several unsuspecting friends found the prototype under their trees.” From those humble beginnings a business was born. Purseket celebrated its first anniversary in May of this year.
Currently based in Rye, N.Y., Carson originally hails from New Orleans and her Irish connections go back generations through her relations in Tennessee. Her husband, Charles, is a relative of Sir Edward Carson, the formidable barrister who sent Oscar Wilde to Reading Jail and led the Ulster Unionist Council in its fight against Home Rule for Ireland in 1911. The opposition of Carson and the Ulster Unionists to any form of self-governance for Ireland led ultimately to Partition in 1922. The couple have three adult children, all of whom are delighted with their mother’s great invention. One of her two daughters is presently based in London and will soon be bringing Purseket to Britain and Ireland.
Carson is amazed at how personal going into business has become for her. “In this age of cyberspace communications, one would expect impersonal sterile transactions,” she said. “To the contrary, I have the friendliest talks with customers calling with questions. Perhaps it’s the nature of the product that I sell. Because a purse is a personal item, discussions about what we carry in our purses can be very intimate and revealing. Seems I’ve become the Dr. Ruth of purses.”
Carson isn’t the only one who’s happy. Twice while I was writing this piece, my bag began to ring. Normally, I’d have to tip it upside down in order to have some hope of taking the call. Not anymore. I was able to reach in and quickly remove my mobile from its designated place in my own Purseket.
Purseket comes in four sizes and ranges in price from $25-$29. For further information, check the Website at www.purseket.com or call (914) 921-2907.

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