Author: Amy Armitage
A new Amsterdam museum is bagging plenty of new visitors. It is devoted to handbags.
The Amsterdam Tassen Museum's collection of 3,500 bags, suitcases and purses ranges from a simple 17th century pouch, once worn by a noblewoman, to an outrageous bad made of armadillo skin complete with its head and paws.
Museum manager Sigrid Ivo says the Amsterdam handbag museum is one of only three in the world, and is the largest. It is located in a 17th century canalside home and exhibits trace the history of handbags, from the Middle Ages to today's designer labels.
The majority of visitors to the museum are women but men are not entirely absent. In fact the museum's oldest and most valuable exhibit is a man's 16th-century goatskin belt pouch with iron clasps.