Say she were stuck in a conversation with a particularly dreary head of state, or was urgently needed for a call back in Buckingham Palace but couldn’t get away from an enamoured member of the public. Rather than interrupt (gauche, unseemly), her late Majesty would simply switch the arm from which she dangled her Traviata style Launer handbag. Thus, she could deliver urgent messages to her staff without running any kind of security risk.
Fluent in this semiotics of style, one of the gathered ladies-in-waiting would immediately flock to the Queen, grip the conversation by the handles and allow Elizabeth to get on with her day – so says Royal critic Kristen Meinzer.
If she were to lay her bag on the table during dinner, those in the know took the hint and promptly began to bring proceedings to a close. (There was also, the story goes, a handily concealed buzzer for such circumstances.) And heaven forbid she lay her bag flat on the ground. The prostration of the royal purse was a sign that the late Queen felt a near overwhelming need to leave whatever situation happened to be at hand with absolutely immediate effect. Were convention, ceremony, or some sort of natural disaster to render Her Majesty temporarily unable to adjust her handbag, she would apparently twist the ring on her finger. How’s that for handbags at dawn?
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