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Oscar Wilde's famous line from The Importance of Being Earnest focuses on what we might not expect to find - Shahidha Bari's essay considers the range of objects we do carry around with us and why bags have been important throughout history: from designs drawn up in 1497 by Leonardo to the symbolism of Mary Poppins' carpet bag in PL Travers' novel to the luggage carried by refugees travelling across continents often in what's called a Ghana Must Go bag.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Shahidha Bari is a writer, critic, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion and presenter of Free Thinking. She was one of the first New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to share their research on the radio. You can find a playlist featuring essays, discussions and features by New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website and a whole host of programmes presented by Shahidha. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn

Image: Artist Yayoi Kusuma at a Louis Vuitton fashion shoot