Empty Inkwell

In a Nut­shell:
Spend a lit­tle extra on one that will last.

The Thought Process:
There aren’t too many things I feel the need to go name brand on—very few things, if fact. But purses are def­i­nitely on that short list, and I’m not even a “purse” kind of girl. My closet isn’t full of hand­bags in mul­ti­ple sizes and col­ors to match every out­fit. The thought of trans­fer­ring every­thing from one purse to another sev­eral times a week doesn’t seem worth it (to me, any­way, but I’m not knock­ing on those that do this—we all have our “thing”—I prob­a­bly have about twenty books on my book­shelf that I’ve never read, and maybe never will, but they seemed like good buys at the time). Instead, I pre­fer hav­ing one neutral-toned purse that can be worn with any­thing. I’ll use it until it falls apart or until I can’t stand look­ing at it any longer.

I can’t tell you how many purses I’ve bought that last just a few months before a screw falls off, or the zip­per breaks, or the han­dle begins to tear. Now that I think about it, maybe this is the rea­son women are known for con­stantly buy­ing purses. (Okay, prob­a­bly not—I’ve seen some clos­ets with so many purses that they couldn’t pos­si­bly get enough use to be wear-and-tear ruined.) But seri­ously, a $20 to $40 hand­bag is prob­a­bly not going to have much of a shelf life.

These thoughts were spurred on by a trip to the Coach out­let the other day. My Fos­sil purse (which didn’t last as long as some of my other Fos­sils have, thanks to Cora, who some­how always man­aged to find and chew on the handle—eventually, I let it become another toy as it was past its prime any­way) was ready to be retired. Funny as this may sound, it was actu­ally Matt’s idea to go purse shop­ping. He was inspired by a purse that a friend of mine, Amy, had last week when she came to visit. She, too, has a lit­tle one just six weeks older than Cora. After see­ing her bag, Matt con­vinced me to choose a big, roomy purse, so I can fit a small “dia­per chang­ing kit” in it, and avoid hav­ing to bring both my purse, and a huge dia­per bag when going on short trips to the store, or other out­ings that don’t require every­thing you tuck away in a dia­per bag (secretly I think he just didn’t want to have to carry the dia­per bag—short out­ing or not).

This was my first Coach purse. I would have NEVER—in a mil­lion years—bought it at reg­u­lar price. There is a dif­fer­ence between pay­ing more for qual­ity, and being absolutely robbed for a name. You decide where to draw the line, but for me, regular-priced Coach and Louis Vuit­ton bags aren’t all they’re hyped up to be. The purse I bought, orig­i­nally priced at $498 (insane), was on sale at the out­let for $149. It gets bet­ter: as I walked through the door, I was handed a 20% off coupon, bring­ing the total sale price to $119.20. Now that’s more like it. I’d rather spend this amount for a purse that will last one to two years (and hey, the name brand is a perk), than spend $40 every four to five months on a lesser qual­ity, no-name bag.



On The Other Hand:
If you are a “purse” kind of girl and opt to swap bags with dif­fer­ent out­fits and occa­sions, the less expen­sive purses may (and prob­a­bly do) suit your needs bet­ter than the expen­sive ones. I couldn’t bear to spend $100 or more on a bag that sits in my closet a good eleven months out of the year.

So that’s my two cents on purses and hand­bags. What’s yours? Are you a multi-purse user, or a one-purse-at-a-time kind of girl? Do you go name brand—even if you have a dozen purses? Sorry guys… guess this isn’t really up your alley, but feel free to share your two cents, too.