I Have Several Baguette Bags but I’m Still a Tired Millennial

• Gen Z-ers can supposedly be identified by the baguette bags they carry.
• I, a millennial, have a baguette bag. Not one, but two. And a tiny pouch, too. 
• But none of that makes me less millennial-coded.

For this article to make sense, I need to start off by telling you two things about myself. One: I turned 30 this year. And two: I’ve made my peace with it, but aging is hard.

Getting older does mean some of the things I do are now considered millennial-coded and supposedly cringeworthy. Like using the cry-laughing emoji instead of the skull. Choosing to use serif font on my Instagram Stories. Saying “dead” instead of “unalive.” The list goes on.

One thing that’s supposedly young about me, however, are my purse choices. Sarah Thompson, a 27-year-old TikToker based out of Boston, says Gen Z-ers can be spotted from a mile away because baguette bags are their “going out” purses. Millennial women, meanwhile, prefer crossbody bags, she says.

Praise be! Perhaps I’m not a fossil yet, for I have a baguette bag. Not one, but two! And I love them.

And if that’s not enough for the Gen Z-ers, I have a tiny pouch purse too. Does that make me more of a zillennial, or am I high on the hopium?

Thompson and this epiphany about my tiny pouches gave me hope. Could it be that I still had some sense of what qualifies as Gen Z-approved fashion? Me, a 90s kid who grew up on a solid diet of Avril and Britney? Me, a writer surviving on her third cup of coffee, tangling with the newfound realization that 11 of her favorite songs came out 20 years ago? 

That said, if you have millennial energy in spades, a pouch isn’t going to help you very much. There are plenty of other tells, like workplace jargon and the slang terms that slip into your everyday conversations, that define millennials beyond the short-handled shoulder bag. 

And maybe it doesn’t matter. People will, and should, continue to tote the pouches we want, crossbody or baguette. Maybe I can get them both. Maybe I can rock both the going out top and the fun pant. And maybe I can have it all.