Casual bag replaces traditional briefcase

Convenience, style and function make casual handbags more practical.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

MILWAUKEE — Whither the briefcase? Once it was the icon of the businessman — much like the three-martini lunch, a dapper hat and cigarette smoking in the office.

In the 1980s, women were encouraged to carry a briefcase to seem, well, business-like, and the briefcase became the necessary accessory for power suits and Peter Pan collars.

Not so much anymore.

For many, the square, hard-body briefcase collects dust in the closet, replaced by the ease of the shoulder-hanging laptop bag or the funky look of a messenger bag that pulls across the chest. Some women shelved their briefcase and carried a stylish handbag to work one casual Friday, then never looked back.

“When I even think of the word ‘briefcase,’ an image of an older businessman in his 50s or 60s pops into my head,” said Megan Radaj, 23, a sales assistant with M&I Bank’s treasury management services. “I think briefcases are a thing of the past.”

Fading away

The briefcase is doing a slow fade from the business world, and convenience, style and function are likely reasons. Women who prefer a large handbag for their work materials say it’s easier to take it from daytime to nighttime and to keep all their purse essentials in the same place. Others say the briefcase can’t protect a laptop as a specially padded laptop bag can. And the briefcase doesn’t sling ergonomically over the shoulder or chest as competitors do.

“Briefcases are still about 60 percent of our business,” said Lisa Wells, a spokeswoman for Tumi, a New York luggage company. But in the last five years the Tumi line has grown to include messenger bags and laptop bags, from the ubiquitous black nylon to lush leather.

Stacey Jones, a vice president at M&I Bank in Milwaukee, started out with a briefcase but now carries a designer bag-slash-purse during the week.

“It’s more fashionable and easier to manage,” Jones, 34, said in an e-mail. “I travel to meet with customers, and a single bag is less cumbersome. When I do require another bag, it is usually the laptop bag. Not only does it hold the computer, but it has great pockets to organize other necessities.”

Minor change

Ellen Goldstein, chairwoman of the accessories design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, thinks the current state of briefcase affairs should serve as a wake-up call to the industry. The biggest update they’ve made to the case since James Bond popularized the attaché case was to add a convertible shoulder strap a few years ago.

Jason Matayas got a briefcase as a gift for college graduation. He used it at first. He thought it made him look more professional.

Twelve years later, Matayas, 34, of Merton, Wis., prefers a different bag.

“I don’t even have a laptop anymore, and I still use the bag,” said Matayas, who works in IT for AT&T. “When I hear ‘briefcase’ I picture a businessman, even a hat and then the briefcase.”

Work station

Gordon Smith of Milwaukee figures the only people carrying a briefcase these days are people older than 30. And he’s not one of them. The 31-year-old carries what he calls “a briefbag.” It fits his laptop and about “50 pounds of work.”

He’s carried a “briefbag” since he was in college.

“It does have an image that goes along with it,” said Smith, an audit manager for M&I. “Generally, I find it respectable to have with you when you’re traveling from one location to another.”

The era of “business casual” may have killed the briefcase, said Carly Drum, an executive recruiter for Drum Associates in New York.

“I rarely see people with the traditional briefcase,” Drum said. “I don’t necessarily think that briefcases are needed. Over-the-shoulder bags are very common, very stylish and conservative.”

However, Drum, 29, cautions against looking too casual. For instance, messenger bags — which cross the chest from the shoulder — can make a suit look rumpled. She recommends an over-the-shoulder laptop bag for everyone. For women, she suggests that a stylish Coach bag or another big purse can look as polished as any briefcase.