Only this year did I notice the national obsession over Dooney & Burke purses, mainly among women. 
Prior to this, I’d never heard of D & B.
Is this D & B mania a recent phenomenon, or does it date back several years or even decades?
(I’m looking for a factual answer, not an assessment of styles.)
You mean armpit bags? When it dawned on then that a purse dangling on two long strings was on invitation for a purse snatcher to cut and run.
I didn’t realize there was a particular craze lately, but D&B has been taking out full-page advertisements in Vogue for many years. That is, it’s not a new or recent brand.
Dooney & Burke used to be the poor second to Coach. Coach used to be a quality product that was handmade in NYC of prime materials. Coach was sold and became an overpriced brand of imported crap made by the same sweatshops that produce all of the other crap on the market. Coach has become a joke.
Something had to take it’s place so, for the time being, Dooney & Burke fits the bill.
BTW, the founders of Coach sold the company and set up a goat cheese farm in upstate New York. No kidding! If you want Coach quality, buy the goat cheese, not the purses.
I first noticed them in the early 1990’s. I sure hope mine comes back into style!
Seriously? Coach is made in foreign sweatshops out of crappy materials? Do you have a cite for this?
I picked up a coach bag for my daughter recently and it looked fairly well made.
Yep, I agree. Dis Coach all you want, but the quality is top drawer.
I didn’t say that the material were crappy or even that the quality wasn’t good. Rewind the history of the company. It was a small NYC leathermaker that used a particular top grade of leather and all items were produced in their small factory. Coach was expensive because, materials, costs and labor were expensive.
The company was sold, the NYC factory shut down and everything was produced overseas. They started using cheap labor and various, cheaper types of leather yet the prices stayed high. They added color and “fashion” to attract buyers when the original appeal of Coach was quality, durability and function.
Then, to make sure that they could move a massive amount of goods they set up stores in the outlet malls to get rid of their fashion mistakes and still maintained their outrageous prices.
Sweatshops can and do make quality goods. It’s not that Coach is not a quality product. Its just that the stuff is horribly overpriced. Make that, outrageously overpriced!
I noticed an explosion of them in the spring of 2003 when it seemed like all of the sudden every single girl in my office had one. I asked a few people what D&B meant and they all said Dolce & Gabbana :rolleyes:.
So, while I knew they weren’t Dolce & Gabbana, I didn’t know they were actually Dooney & Burke until I saw the OP just now.