There are very few things that students can wear on Bennington’s campus that would truly shock me. It feels very normal to see someone in tweed, cosplaying mid-century Ted Hughes, next to someone wearing platform Demonias in the dining hall line. Everyone is carefully curating an aesthetic at all times, either in anticipation of putting themselves in the Instagram panopticon or at least quietly hoping someone will notice their singular uniqueness in choice of objects: their jewelry, their phone case, their laptop stickers, and finally, their bags. The bag is the one consistency throughout.
The dozen or so people I spoke to casually about the bags generally agreed that tote bags seem to be the uniform. Sturdy, easy to throw things into, accessible without a fussy clasp, and usually cheap, it’s also easy to project identity onto. Most tote bags are printed with some sort of logo, brand, symbol, or marker. It easily communicates what you care about and what interests you.
There are dozens of articles and pictures floating around that let you in on the tote bag hierarchy: Instagram coordinate planes set to Radiohead that let you know you’re a tacky performative bitch for wearing a Shakespeare and Company bag; Vice articles that say New Yorker Totes are great for “broadcasting a strong awareness of current affairs and a socially-engaged vibe, without the danger of actually showing allegiance”; Vogue and GQ editors saying the L.L. Bean tote is really the only way to go.
I myself have stayed loyal to the tote: switching when they wear out each year, and currently sporting a tote bag from the Parisian queer bookstore “Les mots à la bouche”—consciously more esoteric and harder to source than popular bookstore totes from the likes of Shakespeare or Strand. It’s my way of saying “I have been to Paris and am studying literature,” which most people learn by standing around me for more than five minutes anyway.
But the more you look out for people’s bags, the more the original assumption seems like a trompe-l’oeil. I expected a sea of tote bags every time I looked around during lunch rushes or on people’s shoulders on the way to classes, but instead saw a healthy plethora of other bags. Either the discourse around the tote, being an “it/clean/cool” girl or a “performative/matcha/fruity” boy (two genders), crashed the market, or you have to look a little closer.
I had to wonder: are Bennington’s bags basic?
“I know one person who uses a backpack, two people, but I think that the reason that I don’t use a backpack is literally because I couldn’t find one that I liked the way it looked,” Sam Maur, a senior studying Architecture and design, said. She uses two different bags, both Diesel shoulder bags purchased second-hand from Depop before her freshman year at Bennington. Both are big enough to carry everything she needs for class, but not necessarily as ugly as a standard Jansport would be. Maur also worried about her shoulder pain using a backpack. “It would be more painful and more ugly.”
I asked if her classes required a lot of shit, and instead she replied that she just needed a lot of shit.
“I feel like I’m naked if I don’t have like half of my entire life with me at one instance,” Maur said.
Joshua Samaniego, a sophomore studying political science, mathematics, and musical performance, concurred, except he used an honest-to-god standard backpack. His paper-heavy classes meant that a backpack was the way to go. Admittedly, he felt like an outlier, maybe even a conscientious objector against the “mom bags” and totes that were all around campus.
“I used to wear one strap like a cool kid, and now I can’t because it’s too heavy. So I use two straps like an adult,” Samaniego said. He keeps all of his papers from every class in his bags until the end of term, letting the backpack get heavier and heavier with politics papers and piano charts; “that’s where I’m at in life right now.”
Although Samaniego noted that if anyone asked if he had paper, he generally could give it to them.
When I went up to a person, looking too closely at their bag or prodding too much at the most visible choice on their person, a lot of them went shy. People demurred, suddenly became self-conscious about something they had obviously loved, spent most of the day with, and meticulously chosen. It was as if I had asked them about their darkest secret or held a mirror up too close to their face. A part of their conspicuous lives was being highlighted, even while consciously choosing something that was meant to highlight themselves.
“All of fashion is a kind of signaling device, but I think the fact that one changes one’s bag less often than one changes one’s clothes puts more pressure on the bag to represent a kind of core self,” Dr. Mariam Rahmani, a Literature professor, said. She currently uses a combination of a backpack and tote or purse when coming to campus, carrying what she needs. Each one Rahmani carefully picked out from a brand she liked. Currently, her repertoire includes a Balenciaga tote bought secondhand and a bag purchased right before coming to Bennington.
“I wanted a new backpack because it’s just kind of depressing to use the stuff from grad school when you have a real job,” Rahmani said.
Dr. Rahmani, who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA and is the author of “Can a transparent purse cut through the deep polarization in L.A. bag culture?”, said that when she came to Bennington in 2022, she was disappointed with the student body, who generally didn’t need to go long distances for class. There wasn’t more creativity in choice for a campus of artists. Backpacks are common and the only sensible choice for the commuters trying to get around the West Side of LA, but when all you have to do is walk to VAPA, why not try something else? Even make something?
Nefertiti Stanton, a sophomore studying vocal, theater, and Chinese, currently uses a Trader Joe’s all-black viral mini-tote with orange lettering bought in Chelsea—a downsize from the previous Trader Joe’s tote she used for classes in high school. She chose it because it matches her wardrobe, which overwhelmingly skews all-black, and because her course load allows her to.
Beyond the trend, it’s a form of self-expression for Stanton, a projection of her best self: “because when I wasn’t sleek, it had the sleekness that I wanted in myself,” Stanton said.
But, Stanton said, in preparation for a larger course load, she plans on finishing sewing a black canvas tote with a monstera-patterned lining this winter, made to her exact specifications and style sense within a budget.
It’s clear that the bag is a marker of individual taste, but also a statement about where someone is in their life. The bag is the flag in the sand for a transition—new school, new job, new aesthetic interest—to then be used for transporting objects from place to place. Am I hiding something? Am I a matcha boy? Am I a vibe? A group of college students, whose lives are all in different states of transition and emotion, seem to be hard to pin down to one type of bag.
A tote bag monoculture doesn’t seem to be pervasive on campus, but there also isn’t a creative explosion of originality happening either. The New Yorker tote isn’t everywhere, but there’s also a clear resignation that we’ve been sorted into algorithmic tastes—not basic but very clearly defined by the forces around us. The area remains ripe for more boundary-pushing.
“I think we can do better,” Rahmani said.
Editor’s Note: The author of this article has since switched from his tote bag to a vintage Coach briefcase purchased off eBay.
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