As women’s clothing has evolved from gowns with corsets to business skirts and push-up bras, their purses have evolved with them, accommodating the style and function of women throughout the 20th century. “The Purse and the Person: A Century of Women’s Purses” exhibit at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum features 167 purses and their contents from the early 1900s to modern times.”[The exhibition] shows the progression of women’s roles,” said Alyce Howe, assistant art curator of LASM. “You can see that progression in the purses and its content.”The purses of the “Edwardian Matron” are small purses made of leather. The contents within each purse include a small container for aspirin, calling cards, a handkerchief and a mirror for the small amount of makeup women wore.”As different as the contents are [between the different eras], there are always contents that tie the eras together, like the aspirin and the [makeup] compact,” Howe said.The exhibit’s next stop is the Roaring ‘20s. Pictures of flappers with short hair and skirts come to mind as the exhibit showcases beaded and gold-chained purses with old-fashioned cigarette holders inside. “Most purses [in the ‘20s] were handmade, which is expensive,” said Elizabeth Tadie, marketing director of LASM. “A person with this purse would be well-off. The contents inside the purses from the ‘20s show status.”Howe and Tadie both said purses in the early 1900s were more for style purposes rather than function and that the function of a purse came into play in the WWII or “Rosie the Riveter” era when women had to carry their money, keys and war bonds around while they went to work in the factories.”This is when you see how the size of purses increased,” Howe said. “You see the size increase and the rise of the purse being functional and stylish.”The rest of the exhibit travels through the post-war ‘50s “Homemaker” era with matching gloves, sunglasses and purses, the “Counterculture” of the ‘60s and ‘70s where purses made both political and       care-free statements, the “Superwoman” era of the late ‘70s and ‘80s where women carried not only their necessities but their children’s necessities as well, and the “Fashionista” era of the ‘90s, which began today’s fascination with designer labels. “I think women have moved away from buying purses based solely on function,” Howe said. “Function has taken a back-burner to fashion.”The exhibit will be on display at LASM through Sept. 13. LASM also currently features an exhibit of Judith Leiber’s famous handbags. Admission for nonmembers into the exhibits is $6.Elizabeth Weinstein, LASM art curator, will give a “Fine Art, Fine Wine” tour of the exhibition Thursday, June 25, from 5 to 7 p.m. Admission for nonmembers is $10. Later this year, Pamela Rabalais-Vinci, curator of the LSU Textile and Costume Museum, will give a tour of the exhibit and discuss the evolution of women’s fashion on Sunday, Sept. 6, at 2 p.m.”The exhibition provides a fun, easy to relate to, very visual history lesson,” Rabalais-Vinci said in an e-mail. “Purse style evolved through the century as women’s fashion preferences and needs evolved from small decorative pouches to the large satchel-styles fashionable today, so helpful as we multi-task throughout our varied activities daily. And, thanks to Prada, Chanel, Coach … or knock-offs of these popular labels, purse preferences today go beyond providing basic storage needs to reflecting the wearer’s fashion knowledge and social/financial status.”—–Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]