The Best Ways to Store All Your Bags and Purses

For some reason, my cleaning efforts have been way more intense this year than usual: I’ve been reorganizing all my stuff, getting rid of old things, and trying to find better ways to store what I keep instead of just sprucing the place up as-is. This has gone great with my clothes, kitchen gadgets, makeup, and decorations, but I’ve found myself getting frustrated as I try to find a better way to store my bags. By their nature, purses and handbags are spacious and the idea of folding or crumpling them is unappealing, since that makes them look so much worse when it’s time to actually use them. I’ve been scheming on bag storage for a while, trying a little of this and that, and I think I’ve finally come up with some good solutions.

A useful hack for storing small bags

I make my living by writing and spend that money on more education, so where I go, my laptop goes. That means I have a ton of totes and large-capacity bags. When I’m not staring at a screen, though, I like to dress up and go out, which means I also have a ton of small bags. I saw a hack from a vintage seller named Aarica Nichole on Instagram for storing small bags using materials you can pick up at your local hardware store, so I tried it out. 

What you’ll need:

• One hanger or a drywall hook

• Large chains

• Some S-hooks, like these 

You simply hang the chain up, either on a hook or a hanger, thread the S hooks into it, and hang your bags off the hooks. Nichole actually anchored hers into her ceiling, but I decided to try hanging mine in a closet. What you do depends on how into the concept of storage-as-decoration you are and how much space you have. Here’s how mine looked before adding some bags: 

I noticed right away that this was not a solution for larger bags, but I could potentially put some totes toward the bottom, so I added one and didn’t see any indications that it was too heavy. Figuring out how to arrange the bags so they laid as flat as possible was hard, as some had structured bottoms that made them take up space and stick out at unwieldy angles. Because of that, this wasn’t ideal for my closet at all; the bag storage was just too space-consuming to exist next to my clothes. Nichole had the right idea keeping this free-hanging in a room. Here’s what I ended up with after my trial run of five differently sized bags: 

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

This hack works great if you have a lot of smaller-sized or lightweight bags and the right space to hang them up. So while I’m not a fan of my closet version, when I get the rest of my apartment sorted out, I plan to hang a few of these chains around. But for clutches, big bags, backpacks, and cross-bodies with long straps, there are still other options. 

Other bag-storage solutions

Not every bag is right for hanging on the chain, but check out these storage solutions you can get for everything else: 

• Try over-the-door solutions, like this unit with two shelves and 11 hooks ($25.99). It attaches to a front door or closet door, making it easy to keep out of the way without sacrificing much actual closet space. 

• Utilize the space under your bed or couch with these flat, rolling storage containers ($31.44 for two). 

• Switch up your shelving with a cube unit, which keeps contents separate and prevents anything from accidentally falling on or crushing them. I have ones like this ($49) and love that they make it easy to keep different categories of items separate.

Otherwise, consider going all-in on storage and picking up some storage furniture that can hide your bags while serving other purposes in your home.

Finally, I have an anti-recommendation: Learn from my past mistakes and don’t try to store bags within bags. Not only does this cause them to get wrinkled and distorted, but it makes it frustrating to try to remember what bags you have at all, let alone which other bags they’re stuffed in. If storing them individually annoys you because of how much space it takes up, even when employing hacks, try storing other things, like shoes, cords, or infrequently used items inside the bags themselves. I do this with my totes: One is for swimsuits; another is for important papers; and a third is a catch-all, kind of like a junk drawer. When I want to use that bag, I just dump out its contents onto the shelf where the bag was sitting and go on my way.

Oh, and of course, if your purses came in dust bags, please use them. Even the best-organized handbag can be a victim of dust and spills. Don’t let this happen to you.