Myth Buster Designer Handbags in the News

Myth Buster Designer Handbags in the News

It was a fleeting thought, but nonetheless, we were thinking about renting a purse the other day. Poof! The thought was gone.

We did some Google browsing and stumbled across all the news media quotes listed below. So, we decided to consult some handbag experts to bust some of the myths floating around. We also did our own research and came up with some surprising data. Bottom line, it's not cheaper to rent a designer handbag. In the long term, you are better off owning the purse of your dreams. The media has taken hold as usual, it is all hype and drama. The proof is in the numbers. Rental fees can be as high as $300 per month or more for a famous high-end designer handbag (12 x $300 = $3600).

No wonder all the advertising is being pushed like none other. People are being blind-sighted by one of the worst investments a woman can make with her hard earned cash! Too bad there aren't laws to protect financial rape. Women, wise up. If you can't afford to buy yourself a new purse a few times a year, you certainly shouldn't be worried about impressing people with designer fashion accessories.

Here are a list of quotes made by prominent publications. They are myths, and we just busted them!

MYTH #1 -
“Because hot handbags have such a short shelf life, why not rent one instead of buying? That’s the logic behind…” — The Washington Times

Not true. A classic designer handbags does NOT have a short shelf life. Let's take the Fendi Baguette as an example. It started the entire "it" bag movement about twelve years ago and it's still going strong. As a matter of fact, Fendi introduced a "rebirth" of the detailed ornate baguette this past season. It's still alive and doing well. And, for all you Fendi baguette lovers out there, those designer handbags you purchased over the years are now becoming collector's items are reselling for a ton of cash. So, don't cash in yet. Hang onto, or still hang it over your shoulder and look fabulously current carrying a Fendit baguette. The Fendi Baguette is available in a small version about 9 x 6 inches in size or the larger MaMa Baguette style. Whichever, you picked a winner.

Not only has the Fendi Baguette survived over a decade of shelf life, it has been copied by all the major handbag brands. The word "baguette" is not synonomous to any small shoulder bag that fits neatly tucked under the arm when carried over the shoulder. Coach has one, so does Prada, Gucci and all the big handbag designers.

MYTH #2 -
“Fashion handbags are now a $5 billion industry, and a growing number of women are renting bags instead of buying them. For the price of a single designer bag, women can rent a year’s worth.” — NPR

Not true. Wait. Maybe true if you are willing to settle for less than the high end designer handbag style. You can rent at a low rate, but the designer bag is a low-rate, too. You get what you pay for in rentals and in retail.

A year's worth of high-end designer rentals like Chanel would cost much more than the price you'd pay for owning a classic Chanel handbag of your own. Chanel maintains its value, too. So, look at a Chanel purchase as an investment. The classic black quilted lamb leather chain shoulder bag rents for more than $300 per month. HUH! You can purchase one for about $1500. That's 5 months of rental fees, not including insurance and other hidden fees for renting Chanel.

Classic Chanel bags last a lifetime and are passed down through generations. Rentals are like booze, here today and gone tomorrow.

MYTH #3 -
“Do you want to look like Uma Thurman, the new face for Louis Vuitton, but just can’t afford those accessories? No problem. Now the middle class is scrambling for brand-name luxuries, borrowing has become the next-best way to look rich.” — Time

Think Keith Richards. Can't resist the Time Magazine quote we stumbled upon online. The new face of Louis Vuitton is Keith Richards! LOL. Now, re-read the quote above. Replace Uma Thurman with the name Keith Richards. Think Twice about what you wish for!


MYTH #4v-
“Ten years ago in the US the trend was towards cappuccinos and lattes – the sort of small luxury indulgence that was affordable to everyone. It’s the same idea with handbags you can rent.” — The Times

What? handbags have been around since the beginning of time. Check out Wikipedia. There's some great information online about the history of the handbag. Man-bags transformed into women's purses, and they've continually evolved throughout the ages. As a matter of fact, the best thing about a fabulous handbag is it can be carried to make your raggiest pair of jeans, a pair of flip-flops and cotton T-shirt look like Vogue. All you need is a fabulous bag and your entire ensemble is pulled together to make a fashion statement.

Yet, renting a designer purse is not a good comparison to the cost of a cup of coffee, even if it's $5 from Starbucks. Let's see, McDonald's just introduced the "designer" flavored ice coffee drink on tap for $1.89. Hmmmm....am I dreaming? The Times is a bit off in their price comparisons here. To rent a high-end designer handbag you'll be putting out more than $300 per month. Let's see. Big decision here. Should I rent a purse or make my car payment?


MYTH #5 -
“In the age of new luxury where some people would forgo a month’s rent for a the new Chloe Paddington bag, retail analysts say there is a burgeoning group of middle-class Americans who are indulging a yen for high-end fashion. Companies ...are catering to fashionistas who lack the disposable income to satisfy their cravings for Coach satchels and Chanel clutches, but for whom carrying a cheaper knockoff is blasphemy.” — The Boston Globe

Sorry, Boston Globe, the Coach handbag is so very moderately priced that renting one is not a very good investment of a person's money at all. To encourage people to rent Coach is not a good financial strategy. Buy Coach. Actually, renting Chanel is not a good investment either. The rental fees for Chanel begin at about $270, and that's not including membership fees, insurance fees, and other hidden fees none of the news media discloses in all the free advertising they do to promote designer rental companies.

Rent a luxury car? Rent a luxury airplane? Rent a luxury suite? These make financial sense for the occassion at hand. Renting a purse? Well, think twice about your cost and pay-off. Do your homework first before jumping into something you can't get out of later.

Nobody should ever carry a fake counterfeit handbag. However, designers like Melie Bianco and Murval make fabulous similar looking eco friendly handbags for a fraction of what you'd pay for a good counterfeit. And, if we are working toward a youthful "new earth" movement, then doesn't the inauthenticity of "renting" a purse to look good actually make a person look bad? Renting a designer handbag in order to "look good" is like living a lie. Authenticity rocks!

MYTH #6 -
“Cash-strapped fashionistas rejoice. The authentic $850 Gucci pink clutch you’ve been eyeing … can be yours for $72.90.” — National Post

You'll have to show us this to prove it. All the handbag rental stores we scoured had much higher prices than $73. Maybe $73 per day, with a minimum rental membership fee, plus other fees like shipping, insurance and etc., etc. Do you really think paying $73 to carry a Gucci bag for one day is going to transform your life? your appearance? your stature? Hello?

MYTH #7 -
“You can pretty much look like a million bucks, without breaking the bank.” — KCNC-TV CBS, Denver

I wonder what Susie Ormand would say about that! Let's ask her. Susie, if you are reading this post, please send us an email with your comments. Is renting a designer handbag a good use of a person's budget? Email KarrBernadette at hotmail.com. Thanks Susie!

Now, refer to the comments made about Myth #4 and living your life authentically. Thank you.

MYTH #8 -
“If you’re a handbag junkie, there is hope online – a service that rents out designer handbags and prevents you from breaking the bank.” — CBS Market Watch Weekend

See Myth #6.


MYTH #9 -
loan[s] out ‘it’ bags that cost more than your rent – and that are guaranteed to be out of style in three months – plus a host of classic styles from designers such as Louis Vuitton, Coach, and Donney & Bourke.” — Time Out New York

See Myths #1, #6 and #7.


MYTH #10 -
“Wake up and smell the Chloe. The Chloe Paddington bag, that is…it’s now possible for you (or that hard-to-please fashionista on your holiday gift list) to carry the $500 or $2000 bag of your dreams – and to swap it out for a brand spanking new model every month – for a fraction of what it would cost to buy all the latest must-have bags outright.” — FWD

Swapping bags out can only be achieved if the bag is available! But your monthly dues is automatically charged to your credit card. Just like that gym membership. It's not any good to your budget unless your are using it and getting the results you want.

But, if you save your money and make a personal invnestment in a designer handbag, it's yours for a lifetime. When the bag is yours all it takes is a walk to your closet when you are in the mood to change handbags . And, you never have to worry about who carried the bag before you. Can you imagine using a purse someone you don't know used for possibly carrying their puppy?

MYTH #11 -
‘I love it. I would never – and could never – afford to buy one of the bags, but I can rent one for three weeks for about $50.’ — SLTtoday.com

Not true. A three week designer handbag rental is about $210 at one of the lowest membership fee schedules for a really nice bag. Anything less than that, you may as well not even consider.

MYTH #12 -
“It says that you’ve arrived. That you’re part of an exclusive club. That you are a fashion insider.. And an affluent one. Your purse packs a punch.” — The Denver Post

Do you see the humor in this quote? Who are you trying to fool? The people around you know whether you can afford the purse you are carrying. What do you think people would really be saying if they see you carrying a designer handbag they know you can't afford to own?

MYTH #13 -
"…thousands of women have signed up to lease the latest luxury brand bags on market, many of them coming back for more week after week, month after month, or every time a new event or outfit calls for the perfect handbag.” — Baltimore Sun

Pure media hype. There's no proof in the quote by the Baltimore Sun. As a matter of fact, there's so much hype in the media it makes the regular person ask, "What's all this hype about?" Think about it. Paying rent sucks. We do it for a place to live or a car to drive. When it comes to a purse, let's get real. Now, we have to worry about making enough money to pay our purse fees?

MYTH #14 -
“A key feature of the business is that women can rent several different handbags over a year for the same price or less than it would take to buy a new purse.” — Pioneer Press

Agreed, a person can rent several purses over the course of one year. But, the cost would be much higher than making an investment in the purchase of one classic high end designer handbag. See Myth #2.

MYTH #15 -
“Business is booming…and retail experts say consumers don’t attach a stigma anymore to leasing large sticker items like cars, even furniture, so it makes sense that pricey purses would fall in line.” —WXYZ-TV, Detroit

Once again comparing a handbag to a $60K Lexus is not a good comparison. Same holds true for furniture. Pricey purses carry very high rental fees.

MYTH #16 -
“Fashion conscientious women will pay hundreds, even thousands of dollars for handbags , everything from Gucci to Kate Spade, but now there is a local company that offers the exact, and we mean the exact, purses for as little as $20….” — KSTP-TV, Minneapolis

Not true, period.

MYTH #17 -
“It can cost a pretty penny…to carry a stylish handbag, and if you want a new bag each season, you’re talking some big bucks, but we’ve found away around it.” — Action News – WXYZ-TV, Detroit

For the rental price you pay, you can easily purchase a gorgeous new handbag every season.

Click here.

Surreal: Accessories that are "an elegant joke"

BALENCIAGA designer handbags gray wool and brown leather designer purses

By Robb Young
International Herald Tribune

There is a breed of designer that relishes the idea of biting the hand that feeds him. Determined to parody fashion and all its paraphernalia, greats like Franco Moschino and Elsa Schiaparelli teased the establishment with hats made out of model fighter jets or shaped like lamb chops.

But then eccentric accessories have long been a favorite means to mock the glamour of the fashion world or to put a surrealistic mirror up against its iconography. Today, young designers are continuing the tradition by dissecting accessory classics and patching them together again in extraordinary hybrids and ironic caricatures.

"We like an elegant joke, not a cheap disposable gimmick," said David Percival, one half of the London label A'N'D, whose most recognizable item is the "shoebag," a handbag that sprouts from the sole of a ladies pump and is perfectly engineered to sit atop a single delicate heel.

The duo is infatuated with creating such mutant accessories , although more the sleek laboratory kind than an ode to Frankenstein. Satchel purses are molded from the upper of a loafer; wallets decorated with the ribbing of a brogue; eyeglasses without lenses that have been split in half and are dangling from earrings; and leather gloves elongated into a buckled belt.

"It's important to not take things too seriously, but it's also amusing to create things that require the viewer to double take on what's seen, to rattle their comfortable perceptions of everyday life, things that at first glance look somewhat 'normal,' " adds Percival's partner, Azumi Yamashita.

Subverting the ordinary is an extension of the deconstructivist movement of the 1990s, when designers like Martin Margiela turned jackets inside out and reassembled classic garments into unexpected new shapes. Only now it is less of a sober conceptual exercise and more tongue-in-cheek.

"Designers have always been inspired by using everyday objects. However, we become less aware of it as they become part of the design lexicon," said Nathalie Kabiri, owner of the jewelry boutique Kabiri in the bohemian Marylebone district in London.

Harriet Vine and Rosie Wolfenden, the pair behind the cheeky costume jewelry line Tatty Devine, have made a career out of defying the conventional idea that accessories are status symbols or a decorative flourish.

"For some, decorative means tiny diamond earrings. For me, a giant paperweight clothes pin is decorative," said Wolfenden, who admits that their hand-painted series of hyper-real popcorn and potato chip pendants molded from glossy resin could be dismissed as simply ridiculous by casual observers.

"Cuckoo clocks, giant Swatch wall clocks, macrame hanging owls - they all have a voice, an internal story. Sometimes the items we choose make no sense, but they are never random," she said. Fine jewelry too has become a playground for surrealist parody. In the hands of young independent labels like Belmacz by Julia Muggenburg, opal and onyx earrings in the shape of human eyes with tear drops suspended from gold chains pay homage to Luis Buñuel's period films.

Harking back to two surrealist masterpieces, Salvador Dali's melting pocket watches in "The Persistence of Memory" and Meret Oppenheim's fur-covered bracelets, the Belgian designer Natalia Brilli has stretched metallic leather veneer over a Rolex-style watch, transforming it into an embossed bracelet.

It's little wonder that the watch is a recurring theme for this new generation, who find themselves surrounded by fashion's vortex of accelerated time. A'N'D also renders its watch parodies timeless - either as plastic reincarnations, mirrored so that the wearer sees himself in the watch face, or as watch-shaped cutouts in leather cuffs. Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag of the Paris label Bless have carved rosewood bangles in the shape of an analog watch, and Husam El Odeh of London has used the silhouette of an early digital watch to create a transparent Perspex cuff with two real gears suspended within.

"This came from the imagery surrounding airport X-ray security equipment. I found myself mesmerized by the intimate objects that can sometimes be revealed in public," said El Odeh, who has also used a watch motif in his recent collection, which includes a cast metal pendant and suspenders made of linking wristwatches. "I am a firm believer that fashion needs to question itself. I like the way fashion can on the surface pretend to be important but retains a certain irony about its own function," he said, pointing to his personal favorite, a necklace with an engagement ring trapped in a plastic ID-tag pendant.

And what accessory better marks a member of the all-important fashion pack than the requisite pair of sunglasses? El Odeh has embedded them in a sun visor cap, and the Danish designer Vibe Harslof of the brand Fafafa has curved sunglass lenses into bracelets and cast them in silver miniatures for earrings and necklaces. Whether extremely intellectual or absurdly extreme, designers making a pastiche out of how we wear our finery and trimmings don't always have to stoop to the fashion equivalent of slapstick comedy. But a self-deprecating punch line delivered with the right amount of craftsmanship can be a mighty potent message.

Pet owners warned over latest celebrity craze - the pooch pouch handbag for mini fashion dogs

By GEORGE WEYMAN

All the rage: A woman takes her dog for a walk in a 'puppy purse'
Animal charities are warning pet owners to keep their dogs on a lead after the latest in a range of carry cases for small dogs was launched. Dog owners can now carry their pet in a small fashion bag, slung across an arm and hanging loose from the waist, in a style made popular by Hollywood celebrities Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson. But the bags, which cost as little as £22, could cause serious distress for dogs, the RSPCA has warned.

It has joined animal welfare charity Four Paws in condemning the bags, which have helped create a boom in small dogs like Chihuahuas and toy Yorkshire terriers. "A dog is not an accessory and people should not be influenced by fashion," an RSPCA spokesman told the Daily Express. "The RSPCA is concerned about the practice of carrying dogs in handbags as some celebrities do. It could actually become distressing to the animal. "A dog's welfare should always be of primary importance."

The charity warns the growing demand for miniature puppies so popular with celebrities has fuelled a cruel and illegal puppy smuggling trade from Eastern Europe. The puppies are often bred in filthy conditions before being taken to street markets, it claims. The abolition of EU border controls means there are no checks on whether dogs have been inoculated or are old enough to be transported. And the dogs are often traumatised by the experience, with as many as 30 dogs a time being crammed into the back of car boots in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland for a painful journey to Britain. Animal welfare charities warn the latest trend in dog handbags can only increase the demand for small pups. Designer carriers are considered de rigueur for celebrity dog owners and such upmarket labels as Gucci, Hermes and Louis Vuitton report a roaring trade in the pooch 'purses'.

Getting a Handle on Louboutin

from Women's Wear Daily

PARIS — Christian Louboutin is outfitting his business with a new platform of controlled growth. Key legs of the plan include a concerted push into handbags, a rollout of boutiques and more aggressive protection of the brand's trademarks, especially Louboutin's signature red soles. In an exclusive interview, Louboutin and Alexis Mourot, his chief operating officer and general manager, outlined a plan that includes:

- Building handbags, which represents less than 5 percent of sales today, to 20 percent of the business in three years.

- Expanding the company's network of freestanding stores to 36 locations in the next three years, up from nine at present.

- Trimming wholesale distribution worldwide to give the brand maximum exposure in the best doors.

In recent years, Louboutin's growth has been explosive and the designer — known for an exacting, hands-on approach to design and quality control — tapped Mourot from Marc Jacobs International to exert a tighter grip on various aspects of the business, from the supply chain and distribution to brand management.

Retail sales of Louboutin products reached 170 million euros, or $248.2 million, last year, according to Mourot, and revenues have been advancing in excess of 40 percent annually.

"The only thing that stops our growth is our production capacity," said Louboutin, dressed in a striped blazer and vivid orange corduroy pants. Mourot said he's streamlined the order-taking process, and negotiated a "number-one priority" status with all the brand's factories in Italy. "It's great to have a good product, but it's even better to have great products delivered earlier and better," he said.

On the distribution front, Mourot has been weeding out smaller doors in the U.S. and Japan, particularly apparel-driven boutiques where designer footwear gets little prominence.

"The sell-through is always better when you're well represented and when you're not mixed with the clothes," Louboutin explained. "And when we're in a shoe salon, we want to be the best one with the best representation."

Wholesale represents 88 percent of revenues, a proportion that will change as Louboutin boutiques, both company-owned and with retail partners, open up around the world. Coming this year are new locations in Las Vegas; South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif.; London; Jakarta, Indonesia; Singapore, and either Beijing or Shanghai, plus a second store in Moscow and a third in Paris.

Mourot said he envisions up to 10 stores in the U.S., "but no more." An agreement with Hong Kong-based Pedder Group calls for 12 stores in the next four years in the Asian region, excluding Japan.

At present, the U.S. accounts for 52 percent of Louboutin's sales; Europe, the Middle East and Russia, 30 percent, and Asia and Japan, 18 percent.

Louboutin introduced handbags about two years ago, and has even collaborated with a local graffiti artist on some styles. Recently, however, he assembled a dedicated team of designers, merchandisers and production experts to build the business and respond to growing demand from customers, especially for daytime styles.

Part one of his fall 2008 collection includes a range of functional bags — some with built-in pocketbooks, others with intricate passementerie embroideries — along with jewel-like evening clutches and pouches with chain handles. A coin-purse-style clasp with two heel-to-heel stilettos is a signature feature on many styles.

Mourot and Louboutin said existing stores would be expanded or reconfigured to better display the expanded bag ranges.

As for trademark protection, Mourot declined to give specifics on recent cases, citing confidentiality agreements, but he vowed to become more vigilant in protecting the Louboutin trademark, with the red soles now recognized worldwide as the designer's property.

And, while it's fast approaching big-league status, Louboutin's company retains an informal and familial atmosphere — his headquarters a jumble of separate offices, showrooms and ateliers on Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau that ensures a constant game of "Where's Christian?" Louboutin said he's keen to keep things that way: "It's still a very young adventure."