More is DD BU? A flipping tote bag??? For School???

[thatcoldfeeling]

DD is starting year 9. She has just showed me the bag she wants for next year. A flipping leather look tote bag.

Apparently "everyone has them in year 9".

Seriously, what the actual fuck is this nonsense?

Her school does not have lockers and she walks to after school sports several days a week. She really wants to carry all her books and sports stuff in a tote bag!? AIBU to be entirely baffled, generally wtf, and completely reluctant to go along with this!?

*Note - Have just had a flashback to the fashion at school when I was a teen for wearing a rucksack on one shoulder only. That was shit. Maybe I am BU and carrying your stuff around with self induced difficulty is a feature of being a teen!?!?

My daughter went from cost a bloody fortune rucksack from a skater shop, to a retro Adidas bag like this one, so still fairly practical. PE kit carried in a Jane Norman bag. Many others in her school seemed to manage with a small handbag that I would have struggled to get phone and lipstick in.

Be thankful your DD doesn’t attend the school in the town I live in as Mulberry bags are de rigueur!

I don't know what kind of tote bags that you all use, but I've used tote bgs as a teacher that are sturdy enough to fit a whole classes books in.
Just today I carried a ream of paper in it.
I've also used it as an overnight bag when i was doing sleep in shifts. It's lasted a good few years.
My river island bags are also big and sturdy enough to fit books and text books in...

OP here are some more suitable options that might be practical and stylish.

here

here

here

here

here

My dsd is going into year 7 and has one of those tote bags, I can't see it lasting long but she'll learn.

Totes are a trend. Some are quite nice and sturdy, others are a pile of shite in my opinion. Michael kors ones especially. I have spent many a break/lunch helping girls refashion a handle of sorts onto MK bags

There are worse trends to be honest and some actually look quite smart.

It was this kind of thing when I was at school. Usually in blue or, weirdly, yellow but they were fab cos you could write all over them (and you had to or you weren't cool). Ah yes, the days of walking to school with my bag covered in the names of edgy bands that I pretended to like, when I was really listening to Haircut 100 and Adam and the Ants when I went home.

Jane Norman carrier bags were the thing for PE kits when I was in school 😂 I dragged my mum in to buy a pair of stud earrings for cheap and asked for a huge bag to put them in!

I new remember the record bag had to be from Shelly’s (Shoe shop on Oxford Circus)

Another one who had one of these circa 1985

what’s a tote bag ?

Thanks, EllenJanesthickerknickers.

Like in the links nailak posted above

Oh yeah I had one of those yellow army bags! Tiny though! In 4th - 6th firm we all had those woven basket bags with the long leather handles. We write all over the handles! Happy days!

My dad is same age, also wanting a tote. I have agreed but specified it must have a zip top or everything will get soaked.

Dd not Dad!

When I was at school, tiny little envelope begs were cool. They'd barely fit a pen, except you couldn't put anything 3d in then, or they wouldn't be flat anymore.

Yeah “head” bags were the thing. Our girls used to use the shoulder strap and boys the handles over the shoulder. I couldn’t afford one however I was relegated to using a converse back pack (which was not cool then). I promoted myself to a canvas backpack from the army navy store when I got to 16 covered in band names and badges. My dd school does not allow totes, everyone must have a regulation back pack so that sorts that one!!

Imagine going to school and wearing your rucksack on both shoulders?! I would have died

I feel your pain.
DD1 had a really cool Superdry rucksack at the start of secondary school. Trashed in less than 6 months. I was .
She begged for a tote after that.
I bought her a gorgeous Tula leather bag for her birthday (I know, but I have a few lovely bags, so she isn't naive).
She still has it, in perfect condition. Going into year 12 now.

Better investment, in retrospect.

It was Bodyshop bags for us too. We weren't allowed to take them into the dining hall, but had to heap them up at one end of the room, and everyone had an identical Bodyshop bag, so retrieving the correct bag at the end of lunch involved either memorising the precise coordinates of your bag (and hoping nobody had chucked it aside) or carefully checking the contents before you made off with the wrong one. I was a late adopter (it always took ages to persuade my parents to let me buy something superfluous to requirements, even if it was only a pound or however much they cost) so mine had a different slogan, which made life much easier!

It's funny, my mum said a few years ago that she'd always been proud of how I marched to my own drum... it was more that i didn't have a clue, and I didn't dare ask for too many trendy things when I finally cottoned on to what was cool. I do not miss being a teenager!

In fairness, the kids at my school would have made your life a living hell, social death would have been a certainty, if you had worn a back pack on both shoulders!

I too had one of those army surplus bags which was written all over ( Duran Duran, Toyah anyone?) but I kid you not that the girls at the local secondary school carry Michael Kors tote bags. MICHAEL KORS!!!!

I jokingly suggested to DD that she start a new trend by going for a shopping trolley for college, surprisingly she wouldn't take me up on the idea and lugs a rucksack I can hardly lift a mile there and back every day. Schools and colleges should have lockers.

We were one shouldered brigade too! So bloody uncomfortable and I'm sure it contributed to my chronic back issues!

Dd12 has just chosen a rucksack on the basis it's wide enough for her books (it's Belgian and has this really cool squared top so folders don't get squashed) Sometimes I worry about her but she's really fashion forward so maybe the trend will catch on...

Am loving this thread! Although it does make me sad that there is such pressure to conform.

On the other hand, it makes a change from some of the threads on here where posters talk about older people as though they are a race apart - surprise surprise, we were once just like you!