The Birkin, for all its It Bag status, was never my dream bag. It came into my life unbidden and I hemmed and hawed for nearly a year before I decided to actually take the thing out of its fancy orange box. I’ve all but abandoned carrying it now unless an event calls for leveraging all the Super Speshul Magickal Privilege Powers I can get.
According to my kitchen scale, my completely empty Birkin weighs 4.34 pounds, just a little more than a half-gallon of milk.
Plus it’s getting slouchy. Now, I’m fully aware people positively dampen themselves over a “floopy” Birkin, but I’m not a floopy girl. My body is floopy enough, so I prefer to counter with a structured bag.
Like this:
Now say what you will about the screaming orange eyeshadow and the inability to describe the shoot concept without using the phrase “Dadaist teen tampon commercial, 1987”
(ooh, they sell hats too!)
That’s a great bag.
It’s also not a terribly expensive bag clocking in at $448 on the Furla website. It’s currently unavailable thanks to the September Issue rush, but I expect it to come back in stock sooner rather than later.
Brahmin also brought out their bags in deep green embossed crocodile, at a moderately lower price.
Not bad, but still not quite right and so the search continues.
Which bag do you prefer, and more importantly, other than the bag, what item (use your imagination) is the model in the top ad selling?
I prefer the top bag because of its colour and longer handles. Having said that, I own both Furla and Brahmin (thank you, San Marcos outlets!), and much prefer the latter for functionality. Brahmin bags are fabulous.
Comment by Jane2 — September 5, 2012 @ 10:06 am
The top add screams Caboodle to me. Like…high end Caboodle, but Caboodle none the less. I think it’s the angles and the cutouts.
Comment by Jennifer K. — September 5, 2012 @ 10:18 am
“Dadaist teen tampon commercial, 1987” LOL!
Comment by Rebelle — September 5, 2012 @ 10:48 am
I like slouchy, broken in, well loved leather bags.
My favorites are Chloe, Balenciaga, and Belen Echandia. I typically don’t care for structured bags, but I do own a Rebecca Minkoff morning after mini mini which is structured.. it’s very cute!
As far as the model in the top ad, it’s clear to me she’s selling the bag but it’s a horrible ad! Weird yellow arms popping out of a bright magenta wall with purple geometric shaped cutouts — odd and not really appealing. Plus the orange eyeshadow just looks off. The ad does nothing to make me want the bag. I don’t want to be this girl or look like her or live in her world.
Comment by katie — September 5, 2012 @ 11:02 am
Personally I’m a Radley bag girl. They’re nowhere near the designer level of a Birkin, but they’re well made and designed and I love mine.
As to what that lady is selling, I don’t think you have it in the US (lucky you) but here in the U of K, there was an exercrable programme called Through the Keyhole, where a “celeb” panel would be shown around the house of an even more dubious celeb, and invited to guess by means of Q&A to whom it belonged. The unveiled guest would appear through a giant keyhole – this pic is an unpleasantly stylised version. Please no return of THAT!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Keyhole
Comment by Jo — September 5, 2012 @ 5:52 pm
I love the Celine Mini-lugggage. Yup, very $$$$$, but stunning, structured, capacious, durable. It goes with everything (really). And it has a “sad robot face.” That girl is selling Ativan or a remake of “The Magical Mystery Tour.”
Comment by Debs — September 5, 2012 @ 10:10 pm
@JenniferK – CABOODLE!! You’re so right!! My other thought was Wet ‘n’ Wild makeup (you know, to go IN the caboodle).
I’m terrible with bags. I like a bag that will sit on my shoulder even with a winter coat on because I’m always carrying at least 1) a travel mug, 2)another bag with lunch, work, and possibly playtime clothes, and 3) my car/work keys. Seeing that the second bag has the longer strap leads me to want it more, although I HATE the way that type of purse looks slung across a body like that. I have yet to find a purse that looks good that I can function with.
Comment by Leah — September 6, 2012 @ 12:40 pm
Try designing a bag at laudividni.com. I have a red and white croc finish Tremolo. See if there is a green you like.
http://www.coach.com/online/handbags/SearchResultsView?storeId=10551&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&quickOrder=yes&searchTerm=4294967244_8122&cacheKeyword=GREEN%20HANDBAGS&category=handbags&color=green&price= I did a search for green Coach bags. No croc but the bags I found were fairly structured.
Good luck finding a bag.
Comment by dcsurfergirl — September 7, 2012 @ 10:12 pm
Reason being, they are celebrating their 20th anniversary celebrations
Comment by Burton Haynes — September 28, 2012 @ 7:16 am