The hobo bag is a style of handbag

Handbag

A handbag, or purse in American English, is a handled medium-to-large bag that is often fashionably designed, typically used by women, to hold personal items such as wallet/coins, keys, cosmetics, a hairbrush, pepper spray, cigarettes, mobile phone etc....

 or purse that is typically large and characterized by a crescent

Crescent

In art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points .In astronomy, a crescent...

 shape, a slouchy posture and a long strap designed to wear over the shoulder. Hobo bags are made out of soft, flexible materials and tend to slump, or slouch, when set down. There are many different sizes and shapes of this popular woman's fashion accessory

Fashion accessory

Fashion accessories are decorative items that supplement and complement clothes, such as jewelery, gloves, handbags, hats, belts, scarves, wigs, watches, sunglasses, pins, stockings, bow ties, hand fans, leg warmers, leggings, neckties, suspenders, and tights....

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This style of purse is called a hobo bag because it resembles the shape of the bindle

Bindle

Bindle is a term used to describe the bag, sack, or carrying device stereotypically used by the commonly American sub-culture of hobos. The person carrying a bindle was called a bindlestiff, combining bindle with the Average Joe sense of stiff....

 on a stick that hobo

Hobo

A hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...

s are portrayed as carrying over their shoulder in drawings and cartoons.

Hobo bags are popular among Hollywood celebrities who favor the bohemian, or boho-chic

Boho-chic

Boho-chic is a style of female fashion drawing on various bohemian and hippie influences, which, at its height in 2004-5, was associated particularly with actress Sienna Miller and model Kate Moss in the United Kingdom and actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Nicole Richie in the United States...

, style familiarized by such celebrities as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen are American actresses and entrepreneurs.Both have appeared in television and films since infancy. Since then, they have continued their celebrity through numerous television programs, films, interviews, as well as commercial endorsements...

, Sienna Miller

Sienna Miller

Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...

, and Joss Stone

Joss Stone

Jocelyn Eve Stoker , better known by her stage name Joss Stone, is an English soul singer-songwriter and actress. Stone rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist...

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