The Bag Lady

I have a serious affinity for expensive handbags. Always have, even as a little girl, and probably always will. Hello, my name is Candy and I am a bag addict.

It all started innocently enough.

A customer walked into the store carrying the bag above. It's called the Birkin and a company named Hermes makes it. That bag above is the Holy Grail of handbags. Books have been written about, wars have been battled over it and there used to be a years long waiting list for it, if you had the Benjamin's to lay down. No one said a word about the bag to the woman, but we all noticed it. After the woman left, we started talking about the Birkin. With a price tag of $10,000.00 to $150,000.00, it is a RIDICULOUSLY expensive status symbol.

We began Googling the bag to find the price and all these sites came up offering the Birkin at discount. $250.00 for a Birkin and three days to ship? Surely these bags couldn't be authentic. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, you know. But they all looked so beautiful and the desire to own one overtook me.

I called Hermes in New York to get a price and was told by an employee, "We cannot discuss the Birkin AT ALL over the phone, but you can come to the store and we will be more than happy to help you." When I asked the employee to repeat what he said, he said that Hermes prohibits talking about the Birkin anywhere other than in the store. My reply, "Have I asked you about something illegal?" My call to the Boston store produced the same response.

Holy contraband. It was then that I got lost in my iPad, pouring over websites with delectable pictures of Birkins in every size and color. But interestingly enough, the official Hermes web site does not have the Birkin on it at all. I checked eBay, and the forty million other sites, which are all bootleg knockoffs and began thinking I could break my rule about fakes, if the fake was of quality. But how could I really know, and why was I so intoxicated by obtaining even a cheap imitation?

I had to put the iPad down and walk away after an hour of researching return policies on these web sites and reasoning that $250.00 or $350.00 wouldn't be a lot to risk for the hope that I could possibly own a good fake. Even if in reality I knew that this probably wouldn't be the case. And here I am today, still thinking about it; even writing about it, but the urge to buy has released itself from me.

I think I'll go visit one soon at the Hermes store in Boston, but I'm afraid it will just feed into my addiction even more. Look what happened to me when I was in it's presence for 5 minutes.

My name is Candy and I am a bag addict.