The Great Purse Debate of 2009 (aka you and your Grucci Purse)

Sooooo...

Now that tempers have hopefully cooled off a bit regarding purses (on a message board that I frequent), I will do my little spiel about fake purses. This is not AT ALL directed at anyone who has one. I have no idea if yours is fake or not, but if it is, there is nothing I can do about it anyway. I am too late, alas.

Here is how I feel about fakes (as there is a time and a place for most things):

• Fake and bake - Good if done occasionally to get a golden glow. Bad if you look like an Oompa Loompa.
• Fake food additives - Splenda, I love you. Olestra, you are the worst substance on the planet, next to blowout baby diapers, which you will probably have if you actually eat the stuff.
• Fake butter - real butter, very, VERY good. Margarine and all of you other butter wannabes, no.
• Fake purses - always bad if it is an actual counterfeit with the LV, Coach, Kate Spade logo. A gray area but completely unnecessary if it is one of those "replica" bags (which I totally don't get the point of, but whatever).

I personally assume that 98% of people carrying "Coach" and "Chanel" bags are carrying fakes. I drop that down to about 90% of LVs and about 75% of all other popular knockoff bags, like Kate Spade and Burberry. If you can't afford it, don't front (me attempting to be "street") and let people think that you can. If you could afford the real thing, you probably wouldn't buy them because every 15 year old at the local strip mall is carrying the same bag. My theory - buy quality once, rather than quantity a dozen times. I spent most of my twenties buying purses that were okay but if I had put the same $15-$30 x 8 purses/year, I could have had one really decent quality purse (on sale, of course).

Obviously, everyone has their things that they spend money on. Some people want to spend money on their house, some on their clothes, some on eating out and entertainment, some on Steelers season tickets (just saying). Some people just need to use their money to simply subsist from day to day and not go into foreclosure. If you have the cash to spare, great. If not, think outside the box and buy a great original-looking bag from TJMaxx or Target. Does anyone need expensive purses and shoes? Of course not. Do people buy them because they are beautiful, well made and (hopefully) in their budget? Absolutely. Some of my favorite all time finds are thrift store and outlet purchases. I love it when people mix high and low end pieces and look good doing it. Target and H&M are my favorite stores for this.

So if you are carrying a Couch or a Prado or Grucci, and are still unconvinced, read here, here and here for more information on counterfeit goods. You can decide.

ETA (post-dessert): now that I have had brownie ice cream sundae, I don't really care anymore about any of the previous rant half as much.