A Wonderful, Unexpected Gem of a Museum in Little Rock!
If you’re like me, you love to discover unexpected little gems when you travel, especially ones that are underrated or somewhat unknown. When you find a place like that, it feels sort of like you have opened a surprise birthday gift and are delighted. That was the way I felt when I visited the ESSE Purse Museum and Store!
I find my delight for this museum rather surprising, as I have not always been a huge fan of carrying a purse myself. In fact, these days I try not to carry a purse if I don’t have to. I have done all the purse stages - the cute little purse as a young girl, the giant perfunctory “mom” purse with everything but the kitchen sink, and the professional-looking career purse. Unfortunately I have also left my purse at several location by accident, including two job interviews. (I got one of those jobs but it is still embarrassing 😳). So I find it amusing I enjoyed visiting this museum so much.
The ESSE Purse Museum is only one of two museums in the world dedicated to the topic of purses. The ESSE museum tells the story of American history through women’s purses. And IT IS FASCINATING!
I was delighted to see so many creative variations of the bag we typically carry around! So creative! I also remembered many trends from my younger days and that made me smile. The museum is arranged by decades in time, plus there are a few special themed exhibits. The museum displays fun accessories and pop culture items with the purses to give you a better sense of the historical trends at that time period. The building is in a fun retro service station, but you’d never tell outside of one large garage door. It is adorably cute and small enough to browse within an hour.
For those of you who love history, here is a great historical timeline of handbags at the link below. ⬇️
The ESSE Purse Museum also has a fun gift shop which has (you guessed it) fun purses and other souvenirs to buy. The staff is very friendly and there is free parking to the side of the building. There is a reasonable charge to visit the museum. You may shop in the store with no entrance fee. You may also shop their fun inventory online.
Gift Shop ⬇️
The building is situated on Main Street at the edge of a fun area of downtown with boutiques and unique restaurants. A lovely ice cream shop is about 1/2 a block away and a wonderful restaurant is next door, but more about both of those in another post! 😉
When in Little Rock, be sure to check out this marvelous little museum! For more information, click on the link and peruse the photos below! 😁
Special Exhibit (next two photos) ⬇️
Future Special Virtual Exhibit! ⬇️
