Arriving at Terminal 3, I got a very good idea of what life in a refugee camp must be like. Hordes of weary, confused travellers were shunted around the hideous building by equally confused airport staff. Occasionally someone would peel away from the pack to hug a frightened-looking relative and attempt to try and find an exit. When we eventually found our way out into the exhaust-filled air we were faced with a hundred-strong taxi queue.

My current summer hold-all easily accommodates nappies, novels, change of shoes plus a Pret baguette, and was a steal at £35 from Fiorelli. The titles that the website allots to its three grades of membership – “trendsetter”, “princess” or “diva” – tell you everything you need to know about the lofty ambitions of its clientele.It makes me long for my schooldays, when the last word in pseudo-punk chic was the customised canvas fishing bag – a snip at a fiver. Terminally insecure fashionistas are urged to sign up to a new rental service, Bagborroworsteal , so that they never suffer the social stigma of being seen with the same bag twice. Good God, she is carrying a green Birkin bag!”The trophy bag effect has spread its grasping tendrils throughout the competitive world of wrist candy. Such an identifiable badge of elitism suggested an arrogant woman who believed herself above the rule of law.Similarly, in Justin Cartwright’s excellent new novel, The Promise of Happiness, which charts the disintegration of a well-heeled middle-class family, a prospective female in-law’s hidden shallows are tacitly conveyed by her choice of accessory: “Ana arrives; she stands in the doorway for a moment for maximum effect. When a woman dangles one of these monsters from her wrist, it snarls: “I’ve arrived, but you are nobody.” Many media commentators thought Martha Stewart lost her insider-trading case the second she arrived in court wielding a Birkin. For now she belongs to an exclusive and particularly distasteful club.

There is a waiting list to get on the waiting list, which is itself two and a half years long.And when a bag slave arrives at the top of the queue, she is pathetically grateful for the chance to spend anything from £3,500 to £50,000 for a leather receptacle for lippie. Its status-symbol properties are propagated by Hermes’ manipulative restrictions on the bag’s availability. Because the Birkin bag (originally designed for actress and chanteuse Jane Birkin in 1984) is the rich bitch’s social weapon of choice. But the trophy handbag serves no purpose other than to advertise its owner’s wealth and privilege.Just as Thatcher’s handbag became a three-dimensional metaphor for her clobbering of Cabinet colleagues, so the wealthy woman’s Hermes Birkin is a symbol of aggressive one-upmanship. But nowhere is the difference between worth and cost so starkly illustrated as with the designer bag. Jewellery, at least, has actual value in the precious metals and gems that are its components, while couture clothing can justify extravagant prices in the miracles it performs with imperfect figures.