Which brings us neatly to the first

It is possible, we all know, to learn an awful lot about a woman from what she carries in her handbag. A case in point must surely be the contents of Janis Joplin's, first uncovered in admirable detail in 1972 in David Dalton's Piece of My Heart and, only recently, making ripples across websites including Hairpin (the first to unearth this impressively obscure reference) and Jezebel.

"Now where in the hell did I put that lighter...?" Joplin is quoted as wondering. "Probably left it in that bar. I'm real sloppy. Lose more damn things in bars. Left a wallet with a grand in it in a bar last week. Just can't seem to hang on to anything."

This, it soon becomes apparent, is not strictly true: in search of the elusive item in question, the singer unceremoniously empties her bag onto her limousine floor.

And the ensuing chaos, as Dalton himself puts it, is truly "awesome". "There are two movie stubs, a pack of cigarettes, an antique cigarette holder, several motel and hotel room keys, a box of Kleenex, a compact and various make-up cases – in addition to a bunch of eyebrow pencils held together with a rubber band – an address book, dozens of bits of paper, business cards, matchbox covers with phone numbers written in near-legible bar-room scrawls, guitar picks, a bottle of Southern Comfort (empty), a hip flask, an opened package of complimentary macadamia nuts from American Airlines, cassettes of Johnny Cash and Otis Redding, gum, sunglasses, credit cards, aspirin, assorted pens and writing pad, a corkscrew, an alarm clock, a copy of Time, and two hefty books: Nancy Mitford's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel."

What a woman. And what a bag, for that matter. Because any receptacle capable of containing such a diverse – not to mention weighty – selection of belongings is a thing of beauty indeed. Joplin's carry-all – in the most literal sense of the words – was, famously, a carpet bag. She once pulled $10,000 in cash out of one and bought herself a Mercedes – a purple one, for the record. Although this particular style is by now most often associated with the 1970s, at which point it was appropriated by any advocate of Flower Power worth his or her credentials, its origins stretch back further than that, to the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed when the cheap, hard-wearing design became a symbol of a nation on the move. It was made out of used carpet, as the name suggests, stretched over a metal frame, and sold for not much more than $1.

"Its appearance was a sure sign of a stranger in town and during the Reconstruction the derogatory term 'carpetbagger' was used to describe a profiteer from the North who came to exploit the prostrate, post-bellum South," reads a new book, written by Robert Anderson and courtesy of the Design Museum: Fifty Bags That Changed the World. It's quite a claim. But from Gladstone's Budget Box, a suitably battered affair still carried by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Chanel 2.55 bag and from the humble plastic supermarket carrier to the Fendi Baguette, bags designed to suit each and every purpose have indeed transformed, or at the very least gone a long way towards revealing, the social and cultural mores of the times in which they were conceived.

Take Charles Sitwell's "self-opening sack", familiar to anyone who has ever visited the US as the means by which that country's residents take home their daily groceries or, perhaps, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, which may be opened and drunk from inside but not uncovered – at that point, drinking it in public would be illegal. Invented by Sitwell, a printer by profession, in the mid-Nineteenth century, its design is entirely pragmatic – side pleats add to its strength and ensure it stands up even when empty. Its introduction to the world also corresponded neatly with the rise and rise of consumer culture and with that the concept of a high street and/or department store.

In days gone by, when doctors routinely made house calls, their visit was inevitably associated with a bag. Crafted in leather, finished with brass and as roomy and tough as might be expected, it was not dissimilar to the Gladstone, a travel case first introduced in the Victorian era. Inside were the tools of this particular trade – from medicine, stethoscope and syringes to pen and paper for writing notes.

Among the oldest bags in the world – and, incidentally very fashionable just now – is the satchel, that stretches right back to the 17th century, even earning a mention in Shakespeare's As You Like It, first performed in 1600. On 27 March 1962, the plastic bag was patented by Swedish company, Celloplast. Seen as a great technological leap forward – this cheap, cheerful carrier was as democratic as it was useful – it is only now that its devastating effect on the environment has come to light. A year later, perhaps the most formidable bag in history was born. The Nuclear Football, a black leather case carrying the missile codes, is only accessible to the President of the United States. It was introduced by John Kennedy in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its profile was highest throughout the Cold War, but it still has its own carriers, whose job it is to supervise it at all times. It exists to this day. Not quite so ominous – but still fairly daunting – was Margaret Thatcher's unforgiving Ferragamo bag, a hard-as-nails design for an Iron Lady.

So far, so heavyweight. Which brings us neatly to the first true 'it' bag, the Hermes Kelly, which unlike its long line of successors, was born not with a bang but a whisper – in the end, the Kelly's immense impact sprang from nothing more than a happy accident. Designed by Robert Dumas-Hermes in the 1930s and originally called the petit sac a courroie pour dame, its very appeal is its somewhat uptight, even demure, nature. When Grace Kelly, the young Princess of Monaco, was photographed carrying it in front of her to hide early pregnancy in 1956 it shot to fame – the image was published on the cover of Life magazine – and was duly renamed in her honour. The starting price for the hand-crafted Kelly is now around £4,000, going up to 10 times that amount and beyond for one customised with precious metal, crafted in rare skin or even studded with diamonds.