Alannah Hill - The Handbag of Happiness: And other misunderstandings, misdemeanours and misadventures

Geoff Rozario

Alannah Hill is an iconic designer, bestselling author and sought-after public speaker. For seventeen years she was the creative director of the trailblazing brand she founded, Alannah Hill. In 2015 she left and launched her own label, Louise Love. Alannahs memoir, Butterfly on a Pin, was released to critical acclaim in 2018. She lives in Melbourne with her son and her beaglier, Jack.

For my son, Edward.
Our children will always be the sun around
which we spin, long after theyve untied our
apron strings. And their baby hands the only
hands of which we can never let go.

And to you, dear reader.
Are you tired of opening a book and not seeing
your name in the dedication? I am too, so
The Handbag of Happiness is also for you!

Welcome to The Handbag of Happiness, and Other Misunderstandings, Misdemeanours and Misadventures.

Stop sweeping and mopping and feeling guilty! Youve done the right thing in purchasing my book today, so stuff it inside your handbag, kick off your sky-high heels, run yourself a bath, pour yourself a dessert sherry, love, and listen to me!

Youve come to understand that life doesnt go according to plan, no matter how perfectly laid out your life plans might have been. Youve told yourself youre young at heart and can get through anything. That age is just mind over matter and if you dont mind, it doesnt matter. Youve already guessed that we cant always get what we want and that often we get what we dont want or need. You might be marvelling at how parenting wouldnt be so difficult if we didnt care how our children turned out, and how in time our little miracles naturally turn away from us, leaving us bereft, resentful, confused and very, very sad!

Life throws jewels and baubles and sometimes a brooch of bad luck our way, making us tick tick ticking little timebombs ready to explode at any given moment.

Im ready to explode at any given moment!

I explode quite regularly, dont you?

I believed I had no words left in me after I wrote my memoir, Butterfly on a Pin. I was bereft of the written word but, unfortunately, I still felt like I was going to explode (at any given moment).

And so I reinvented myself as a public speaker, speaking at events about trauma, resilience, lovelessness, how to become successful, how not to become successful and how not to make the same mistakes I did.

Reinvention can be a tremendous thing, but then I was back to being just me because we take ourselves wherever we go.

And so, one blistering, hazy Sunday afternoon around 4 pm I started writing again!

Real-life episodes from my life tumbled onto the page, causing an occasional howl of laughter and the odd sparkly tear, stories about what happens when things dont go according to plan which, in my experience, is pretty much most of the time!

I wanted to jam-pack The Handbag of Happiness with black humour about modern-day chaos, with punked-up defiant stories, like the time I turned a Mentos lolly into a tooth and the tooth flew right out of my mouth (in public!). Youll find that splendidly embarrassing story in The Handkerchief of Bravado.

I wanted to write about lament, love, shame, resilience, triumph, silent sadness, delusion, disdain and utopia with mini-epiphanies, anti-epiphanies and a new kind of epiphany I havent thought of yet.

I hope my stories bring a gentle, hilarious and devilish, zen-like calmness while you sit reading under your favourite tree

And I hope to see you soon, just you and misdemeanour me!

Can a really, really expensive designer handbag make you happy?

Twelve years ago, I bought a really, really expensive handbag because I thought it would make me happy. My Miu Miu handbag dazzled with black and silver Italian sequins, often startling envious bystanders into staring at it until they risked going blind. The interior of the Miu Miu was black kid leather, the clasp innovative and silvery cool. The handbag was so devastatingly beautiful that I forked out $4000 for it the most money I have ever spent on an accessory, a shoe or a handbag.

I didnt believe in wasting money on designer clothing, jewellery or handbags. I preferred the knock-offs because I always ruin the interior of a bag. Lipstick, hairspray and lip gloss they all love blowing themselves to pieces inside my handbags. I think its because I leave my bags in the hot sun and it somehow forces the lipstick and hairspray to just kind of blow up lipstick everywhere!

I believed in spending money on designer kitchens, marble bathrooms, vintage hand-blown pink chandeliers, dodgy real estate and a staggering shares portfolio with $300 worth of Rio Tinto and a few diamond shares. (Unfortunately, the Rin Tin Tin soon plummeted to catastrophic new lows and looked like it might never regain consciousness.)

But suddenly I wanted to know what it felt like to say, My bag? Oh its Miu Miu! You see, I was a successful 45-year-old businesswoman but Id never owned a designer handbag. I didnt think I deserved to and, quite frankly, I thought people who purchased handbags over $1000 were insane! The few people I allowed inside my home would often comment on what they considered a disappointing, lacklustre, designer-deprived wardrobe.

not even a Dolce & Gabbana wallet? Chanel purse? A Balenciaga tampon holder? Come on you must have a few vintage Yves Saint Laurent leather totes lying around? Theyre iconic!

Yeah and theyre $50K!

One bitter-cold November afternoon when I was in New York for business, I marched into Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue, slammed the ludicrous $4000 onto my Black American Express card and then levitated.

Id never been so happy in all my life! In fact, I was so happy I levitated six floors up, suddenly appearing in the fancy Bergdorf Goodman restaurant, where I congratulated myself with a Bergdorf burger and Diet Coke. Id done it! I finally owned a designer handbag. My handbag suggested to everybody I swanked toward that I was a successful person showing economic prosperity the stains of childhood insecurity miraculously gone!

For ten minutes I was so puffed up with happiness I felt like a bright red helium balloon.

And then the happiness disappeared. And so did the red helium balloon.

After ten minutes, I was back to being me. Just me in an NYC department store, spending $4000 on a bag in the hope it would make me happy. And it did, but only for ten minutes.

I often ask myself the question, What does make women happy? And the brutal answer is, nothing! Not for more than ten minutes at a time. But perhaps those perfect ten minutes are worth living for, and the hours that circle them worth fighting for, making the ten minutes feel just a little bit longer.