There are mid-range brands, they’re just not very exciting to talk about. For the trendier bags, you’re paying a premium for fashion. Bags like Coach are very well made and usually classic enough that you can use them for a long time but you a definitely paying a bit for the label. Target does a great job of knocking off the trends in a cheaply made bag.
For a well-made bag that’s not a “label”, $50 wouldn’t be enough. Target bags are $15 to $25 and they’re made of man-made materials and sewn with cheap labor by a machine in China. A $50 bag will use a cheap leather and probably still be mass-produced and machine sewn. A $100-$150 bag will use a higher grade leather (or other natural material), have better quality control and might be hand-finished. The extremely expensive designer bags are made with premium leather or ostrich or alligator and are hand sewn in either France or Italy.
Well obviously there is. I have a few Jeannie Lottie handbags, and a couple of Matt & Natt handbags that were pretty close to $100 Canadian. They are perfectly nice, servicable bags. They’re certainly nothing like a Coach bag for quality - the leather isn’t as nice (well, Matt & Natt are a vegan company so their bags aren’t leather at all), the finishing isn’t as well done, details aren’t as clearly thought about, etc., but they’re still nice bags.
Heh - yah, Chanel is more expensive than Coach, but your coworker sounds like a snot box.
Erm, you do understand that all of these things have nothing, whatsoever, to do with a high quality leather handbag, right? I like high quality leather goods - I have a Cole Haan handbag that I bought specifically because the leather was so nice (ditto for their shoes, incidentally). From a style perspective, logo bags of any type are not my thing. That doesn’t mean that the non-logo products from the same companies aren’t excellent quality.
Make no mistake about it FatBaldGuy about half of those COACH bags being carried around have some balls in 'em.
All that said though, **DianaG ** makes a good point about the fabric vs. leather. The Mrs. collects the things, and I’ve got a duffel similar to this that’s years old, and the leather is just that good. It wears like iron.
Wouldn’t buy one today though, not when there are such good knockoffs.
So, I bought my Coach bag for exactly the same reason as you Penchan. I’m not a huge fan of them but it was probably the most reasonably high-quality bag I felt comfortable purchasing.
I interact with private firm attorneys, many of whom work for large private firms and at some point someone made a crack that their paralegal has a more expensive purse than I do (this was at lunch). There was also the repeated mistake of taking me for the college intern (“when’s the lawyer getting here?”) etc. and finally I just snapped and bought a really expensive suit, purse and shoes. I mean, maybe they didn’t mean to be MEAN, I get along well with most of the attorneys I encounter from the private sector but I was really underpaid the first few years and I didn’t invest in Coach purses and Prada heels because I wanted money in the bank instead of cc debt. I upgraded after I stopped making clerkship money and was graduated to a proper salary.
Mine was about $250, on SALE, at the Coach outlet in Vegas. :eek:
Anyway, word of advice-I also bought signature fabric (thought process: if I’m going to buy one, may as well show off), took it to Mexico in April and
a) the ink in the leather start bleeding into my clothes
b) the sun faded the fabric a bit
Coach prides itself on being very durable and I will grudgingly admit that it is well put together and I’ve never had a zipper problem, not ever and I just destroyed a 9 West bag in TWO months. BUT, the fabric ones CAN fade so take care of it. And the leather will bleed if it’s next to your sweaty skin for several hours as you wander around Chichenitza.
There’s at least two in this crowd. I shop at Target and I won’t spend more than about twenty bucks on a purse. I carry the same bag every day and only have to replace it about every two or three years.
My mom was once given a bag by some big shot who was trying to impress her husband. She didn’t think much of it and stuck it in the closet. A few months later, she saw it in a store and realized that she’d been given something very expensive! I think she said it was worth a couple of thousand dollars, but I don’t recall any more details of the story. Surely there’s no such thing as a two thousand dollar purse, is there?
I’m pretty certain most of the real Louis Vuittons are in the high 700s, low 1000s. But I am not an aficionado so I can’t really tell the difference when women are carrying them. I suspect most of the ones I see around downtown L.A. are the real deal.
An additional point I’d like to make about buying something slightly more expensive but known for durability (like a business suit or a business bag) is that these things seem to take an inexplicable amount of wear and tear. I know, I would not have believed it myself, that my desk job could make me go through businesswear so fast (maybe my ass is fat and it rubs on my aeron chair too much) but it makes more sense to save up my money and buy that offensively expensive suit and just have it last through several dry cleanings than buy something at The Limited for cheap and have it fall apart.
Add in the fact that you are expected to maintain a level of polish and professionalism and it makes sense to buy it once rather than go shopping 4 times in one year, or have a suit handed back to you and the cuffs are fraying and there’s obvious wear.
Hold on a second. Are you telling us that someone you were interviewing with for a job, had the audacity to comment negatively on perfectly appropriate business attire? And “he didn’t want to hate them after you leave?” What the hell is that supposed to even mean, anyway? And you would like working for this guy?
I guess it really does take all kinds, because that, to me, is a hostile work environment/sexual harassment suit just waiting to happen.
I do wish you the best of luck, though, if that’s what you want.
$20,000 actually. Fendi bags run between $1,000 - $4,000, Louis Vuittons can go up to about $3,000, Burberry are between about $1,000 and $4,000, Gucci start at about $1,000 and go up well over $5,000, just if we’re going to be fighting ignorance here…
Birkin bags run up to 20k, actually. I think a steal on one is 12k, though I may be wrong.
Vuitton has their plain monogram series for the prices you listed, but if you want anything other than brown you’re starting at $1500 and going upwards of $5000.
I question why I had to throw it in too, since I tell practically everyone I meet that I bought it for $10 at a yard sale!
And you all are killing me with these Vera Bradly bags. I have been retching about these things for years. I had no idea they were EXPENSIVE designer bags! I thought they were some quaint nostalgic trend for Mee-maw’s snuggly quilts people were picking up for cheap. Honest to God, I did. I think they’re beyond atrocious. Way beyond.
Last week in the bar after golf, one guy pulled out his amazingly beat up wallet. Another guy commented that he seriously needed a new wallet, which led the rest of us to pull out our wallets. And like a doofus I found myself drawing everyone’s attention to how well my several-year-old Coach wallet had held up.
My wife bought her first Coach bag sometime soon after we got married. We thought it was quite the luxury at the time. She’s bought several more since then - bags of various sizes and colors, billfolds, and briefcases. I have heard her observe that a downside of their durability is when you want to get something that is of a newer style, but you still have this perfectly servicable Coach of the required size and color. I think she has justified replacing at least a couple of billfolds and purses hy handing a couple down to our daughters.
I’m on either my 2d or 3d black leather Coach wallet. Costs a buck and a half, but lasts a good 5 years or more with showing little sign of wear. Does this make me a bag-hag?
Now here’s the important question - Please tell me that all of you remove the little keychain/fob/tag from your Coach bags before using them!
(I should probably be embarrassed to admit that we once had a Coach braided collar for our spoiled bitch. Had to get rid of it after she got skunked and we just couldn’t get the smell out of the leather!)
Well, given what OP said about the job in question, it sounds like she should have been wearing a suit, or at least a jacket. I think he was hinting that the people at the next interview wouldn’t be so laid back about it. I don’t understand the comment about the heels, though, I can’t imagine in what context one’s shoes would come up.
When I worked in the corporate world all my clothes and accessories came from low to mid range stores: Target, NY&Co, Gap, Nine West at the high end, I just made sure things fit and that the colors matched. Personally I think that these are good enough for most office jobs, maybe setting aside I-banking and such. But I think women who appreciate better quality brands should be proud of their wardrobes. They are the ones who set the trends for the rest of use, and help decide what styles appear on the store racks at Target and Gap. Ladies, keep it up!
Consider my ignorance on Birkin prices fought thanks to alice and Diosa…thanks guys.
Diosa, the brown ones are what I was talking about. I was thinking of buying one for my sis as a graduation present so I researched the prices on Eluxury.
Heh - we have a glurge of Chinese made rip off bags - they have the same shapes and colours as the expensive brands but not as well made and a mere fraction of the price. Gets me thinking about labels and why we pay so much for them - I reckon it is about the look, if you can buy something for a fraction of the price but looks just how you like it, why worry.
My brother in law is a millionaire business man and buys expensive everything (for himself I might add, not others!!!) - when I last saw him he had a D and G belt on or some similar label. I remember almost subconsciously looking at it and assuming it was a cheap rip-off which begs the question, why pay the earth when others will assume it is a cheap rip off anyway.
I would pick something more conservative but with the nice big monogram.
). I can’t even remember when I bought it, but I’m willing to bet it’s older than Alice.