SPECIAL POST: The Para-Tote - A 1950s Concept Bag That Became a Reality

Para-Tote with fake cardinal, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The Para-Tote - A 1950s Concept Bag That Became a Reality

Years ago, the curator of The Vintage Purse Museum was doing her never-ending handbag research, and stumbled upon an ad for a very quirky bag: the Para-Tote. This box-shaped plastic-handled clear vinyl novelty item was meant to hold one's keys, wallet, and lipstick atop a shelf that covered the rest of the interior, which featured air vents, a wooden perch, and food and water holders for... a live bird.

Not only were we fascinated, we thought, wow, we will never, ever find one of these bags for our collection.

We were wrong. 

After we acquired our Para-Tote, pictured at the top of the page with a fake cardinal—homage to Arizona, where our collection is stored—the next step was to pinpoint its history. 

The Para-Tote is in newspaper articles and other publications as hyphenated or one word, and with the first letters in both upper and lower case, but we're writing it as "Para-Tote" throughout this article for consistency.

Carroll Daily Times Herald, November 19, 1954, clipped via Newspapers.com.

Turns out the Para-Tote was a concept bag, submitted to an annual contest at Hess Bros., a Philadelphia department store chain founded in 1897 by brothers Charles Hess and Max Hess. It was Max Hess Jr. (1911-1968), who took over leadership at Hess's in 1935, and began holding special events such as flower shows, contests, fashion shows, and celebrity appearances. 

Max Hess Jr. was responsible for 1954's fourth annual "Versatility in Design and Use Contest," which was chaired by Ed Carroll. Among the sixty winners to receive commemorative plaques was Jana Handbags, Inc., designer of the Para-Tote. The winning items were later displayed at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

Jana Handbags, Inc. was founded in 1942 by Harry Jason (1910-2002) and Ludwig "Lou" Nathan (1908-1987). In some 1954 newspaper articles, Lou Nathan was said to have been the designer of the Para-Tote concept bag, but we also found a 1956 article stating that actress Marian Meyser was the designer. We could not find a Marian Meyser in genealogy archives, so we believe this was either a stage name or a misspelling. Therefore, we're not sure who designed the Para-Tote.

A more important question may be, what inspired its creation? 

It occurred to us during our research that the Para-Tote was reminiscent of 1970s clear platform shoes containing water and goldfish. Of course, these were a fad circa 1973, which would be nearly 20 years after the Para-Tote's debut at the design contest.

But wait. 

We did further digging and found out that, in November 1951, the National Shoe Convention in Chicago displayed a pair of goldfish shoes—which were not going to be sold to consumers. (See photo below.) Could these concept shoes have been Harry Jason and Lou Nathan's inspiration for the Para-Tote? 

Goldfish shoes, November 18, 1951, The Philadelphia Inquirer, clipped via Newspapers.com.

As the 1951 goldfish shoes were not meant to go into production, we wonder if Mr. Jason and Mr. Nathan also intended for their Para-Tote to be a one-off to bring publicity to their brand.

We don't know the answer to this, but we do know that high-end maker (primarily of leather goods) Mark Cross began selling them less than six months after Jana's 1954 contest win. They cost $18.50 at Mark Cross's New York store. This was a tidy sum in 1955, plus the 10 percent federal excise "luxury" tax on handbags. (Unless they somehow got around the tax by calling it a bird cage or "parakeet limousine" as in the ad below.) Still, based on what we saw in newspaper ads of the era, $18.50 was within Mark Cross's pricing parameters for a non-leather bag.

Mark Cross ad in House Beautiful magazine, July 1955, clipped via Internet Archive.

Mark Cross ads were definitely geared toward a moneyed audience, but journalist Marj Heyduck's (1913-1969) newspaper column of July 28, 1955 (below), shares some wry skepticism about the popularity of the Para-Tote. 

The Journal Herald, July 28, 1955, clipped via subscription to Newspapers.com.

We tried to find a connection between Jana and Mark Cross, whose president was, at the time, Gerald Murphy (1888-1964), but there is no evidence of one. We suspect that what occurred was an agreement to produce these bags based on the concept piece. We don't know if the idea was purchased outright, or if Jana received a percentage of sales, or if it was another type of collaboration between Jana and Mark Cross.

We found an August 1955 newspaper column by Broadway columnist Whitney Bolton (1900-1969), who said that he and Ruth Mitchell (1919-2000), a Broadway stage manager, walked into the Mark Cross store at 55th and 5th, and one of the Para-Totes was on display, with a live, "happy" parakeet inside. He said the bag was "slightly open down the seams" to let in air, so we believe that the air holes were added to a later version of this bag, which we'll get to in a moment. Later that day, Mr. Bolton said he saw actress and singer Elaine Stritch (1925-2014) on the street and told her about the parakeet handbag. It appeared to Mr. Bolton that Ms. Stritch thought he was joking.

Ms. Heyduck and Mr. Bolton weren't the only newspaper columnists that poked fun at the Para-Tote.

1955 Boston Globe column, screenshot via subscription to OldNews.com.

As the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so Mark Cross surely benefited from these humorous takes. However, by late 1955 the Para-Tote, identified more generically as a "parakeet handbag," would be sold in pet shops and department stores for about $4. We believe our bag is one of these later, more affordable versions. They also had the addition of air holes rather than vented sides. Ours did not come with a plastic shelf at the top to hold keys and such, so we don't know if a shelf came with it, or if ours is missing.

October 14, 1955, Evening Star, Hecht's department store, clipped via Newspapers.com.

The Vintage Purse Museum's Para-Tote, sans fake bird. We believe this is a later version of the bag because it has holes, rather than relying on the seams for air circulation. We don't know if this version came with a clear plastic shelf. If it did, ours is missing.

So, what company actually manufactured the Para-Tote? We're reasonably certain it wasn't Jana or Mark Cross. Midcentury handbag makers sometimes relied on outside contractors to create their products, rather than make them in-house.

Whenever we do research, we use keyword combinations in the search boxes of our various resources. Sometimes we get a promising lead. In this case, what piqued our interest was a reference to a New Jersey company called Bird Bag Co. The name itself didn't prove anything, but we also found a 1954 Bird Bag Co. help-wanted ad looking for "experienced handbag frame coverers." 

We reached out to relatives (names withheld for privacy) of the founders of Bird Bag Co., and they kindly responded to our email query. While the timeline of this company is very close to the invention and production of the Para-Tote, they couldn't verify that their family were the makers. They did agree, however, that the name of the company and its work framing bags for handbag makers could be potential clues. If we uncover anything more, we will update this post.

News of the Para-Tote—with optional 14K gold ID tag—made it across the Atlantic, as evidenced by the 1956 Coventry Evening Telegraph article below. Columnist Mavis Cole only says that it was a "craze in New York," and not that it was available in the UK. Mark Cross had a division in the UK at that time, but we don't know if it ever sold the Para-Tote.

Coventry Evening Telegraph, November 2, 1956, clipped via Newspapers.com.

Mark Cross advertisement for the Para-Tote in the April 15, 1956 issue of Vogue magazine. Clipped via Internet Archive. 1956 was the last year we could find ads for the Para-Tote.

1956 appears to be the last year the Para-Tote was made and sold, but we did find a 1959 photo of actor Hugh Dempster (1900-1987), and his wife, actor Emma Trekman (1909-2000) visiting Portland, Oregon with their parakeet, Bozie (photo below).

August 19, 1959, The Oregon Daily Journal, clipped via Newspapers.com.

Researching this part handbag, part birdcage, and all conversation piece was quite a journey! While this parakeet/handbag concept wouldn't fly today (pun intended), one must remember that the 1950s were innovative times, and that an abundance of contemporary handbag designs are based on those past styles. Think about it—these days, there are people who carry their dogs and cats in handbags!

This article ©2026 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Special thanks to the relatives of the founders of Bird Bag Co. Resources used were Newspapers.com, MyHeritage.com, and OldNews.com, to which we have paid subscriptions, as well as Google and Internet Archive. Please do not use photos or information from our website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.