The decline of the $400 purse—and the streetwalker
The $400 purse isn’t dead yet, not by a longshot. But in the current economy, fewer people are able to easily afford them.
Although I suppose designers have got to eat, too, please excuse me for not being able to shed a tear on this one.
Luxury designer items have always seemed exceptionally silly to me. During regular visits to New York over the years, I’ve watched prices climb to astronomic heights. The last time I was there I visited stores where fairly ordinary-looking people saw nothing odd about purchasing a purse with a price tag of $2000—oh, why not take two? They’re small.
This upward creep of prices seems to have little relation to the quality of the clothes. Nowadays women’s fashion resembles a cross between something a color-challenged little girl might choose for herself (wildly-printed pinafores over ragged t-shirts with clashing colors over leggings with high boots), the garb of a heroin addict, and something that used to be found only on streetwalkers peddling their wares.
And, while we’re at it, whatever happened to streetwalkers? Not that I much miss them, but they used to be a fixture in all the big cities.
I’d been wondering whether the internet and cell phone has largely replaced them, and a brief bit of research indicates that this is indeed so. It also turns out, if you follow the article, that some of those $400 bags are being wielded by those very same internet prostitutes. Hmmm.
[CORRECTION: Oops, I grossly underestimated the price of a Louis Vuitton bag, the internet prostitute’s choice for holding those all-important items. Four hundred dollars would be a bargain, it seems.]
Actually, I own Coach stock, and $400 is not too bad. Their all-leather bags last and last – some of mine are a few decades’ old.
(Not that I’m admitting to my age…)
Purses – outside my area of competence. I carry a $17.00 wallet.
Hookers – Could be it’s too dangerous for streetwalkers anymore. Judging by the ads in the local free newspapers, the in-call business is still flourishing.
I need for you to talk to my wife. I wish her numerous bags only cost $400. Then there are the designer clothes and shoes…. Woe is me!
Hell, I carried a $300 leather Coach bag every day for twenty years, and when it couldn’t be repaired (at no charge other than a small cover fee to ship it back to them) they sent me a completely new leather handbag of similiar design.
The new bag, alas, has a small constitutional failing in the rivets holding the buckles on the shoulder strap, which defies permanent repair… but other than that, I am enormously happy with Coach. Well, the plain leather stuff, that is. Lately they seem to have gone after strange and impractical fashions…
But if I ever get sufficient royalty checks from my latest book, I will definitly invest some of them in a new Coach leather shoulder-bag.
The absolute tackiest is renting these bags. And I thing LV bags are ugly.
I really can spell. I meant think.
On one of those shows, “What to wear” I think, the yoga teacher from Arizona goes shopping with her sister in New York and looks at the clothes and she says the price of one thing and says that she looks at it and it makes her feel physically sick.
I can relate.
I can relate and I’m a good capitalist. Not that I wouldn’t dress a whole lot better than I do if I had the money but I can relate.
I keep remembering a comment made at The Daily Mail on an article about women renting male escorts for business dinners, parties, etc. It was something along the lines of, “women will pay $2000 for a purse to impress each other, so why wouldn’t they pay for a handsome date?” I thought it was a particularly astute realization about the reason for such absurdly priced fripperies. My whole family could take a vacation with that amount, and we’d rather.
Well, at least I’ve learned something here: To women, purses are more interesting than hookers.
It seems that for women purses are not simply practical item or detail of costume, they have some symbolic meaning too. It is for therapists to tell us why.
I’ll take risk to suppose that in classical Freudian approach a purse or a bag should symbolically represent a womb or a woman body. Than it would make sense why they women like them to be durable, all-leather and beautiful.
I’d like to see a real tax on the rich, progressively focused on luxury items. Including all imports, so people just can’t go to France and get them cheaper.
Umm, Sergey? I think you’re reaching, looking for the Freudian angle. I can’t speak for other women, but for myself, I like the purse to sort of match what I am wearing, and to be durable because it’s too much of a bother, always breaking in a new one and sorting out how to carry – and find! – all the stuff that I carry in the bag!
Car keys, wallet, checkbook, coin purse, card case with several sets of business cards for myself and clients, pen, lipstick, powder compact, comb, notebook for work, postcards with info for my book (“To Truckee’s Trail” – the greatest adventure never told! It’s available at Amazon.com, BTW) small address book. tiny flashlight, Swiss Army knife, CD with backup of book that I am currently working on, just in case the house burns down while I am out and about, small calculator, and a handful of paper clips and safety pins, down in the bottom.
And when I am traveling, there’s a water bottle and a couple of magazines, as well. Nothing Freudian about it – just think of it as a portable office and survival kit.
I think the fact that women in dresses don’t have pockets, tends to produce a hyper need for a carrying case. Men only need briefcases and satchels for specific business reasons, but women may not always have pockets to put their stuff.
That, and the need for makeup products for “powder rooms” also increases the need for carrying capacity for females.
Ymar,
It’s also helpful when a man has a wife with a bag when the pockets don’t hold everything. I speak from experience.
It’s also helpful for containing extra mag clips. Just in case.