From My Closet – February 8th, 2013

Okay, so I got this bag for Christmas. Wait, that’s not entirely accurate. Lemme e’splain…
Way back in October when I went to Blissdom and hung out with my sister, giving her closets therapy and stuff, she and I went to the big, fat place the rhymes with Sinners at Bay and Bloor in Toronto, which is a tres choice location for all the pretty. But I admit, that locale hoards the BIG brand names, sometimes with still BIG price-tags attached. Though totally fair I’m sure, an item such as a super-gorgeous espresso brown DKNY totebag tagged at the low-low price of $499? That warrants a punch in the bag’s face. Kinda like this:
She: *gasps* Look at THIS piece of lovely!?
Me: *purrs* Gorgeous… Lemme see? *turns tag over* Does that say six-hundred?
She: Well, it says five ninety-nine…
Me: Wot??! *clutches pearls*
She: *clutches pearls* I KNOW! HOW DARE!?
Me: Let’s punch that bag in the face.
She: Mmmkaaaaay. *punches bag*
Me: *punches bag*
She: *puts bag back and picks up another* But look at THIS beauty…
Me: Gorgeous!! Wait… how much?
She: Never mind. *punches bag*
You see how a day like this goes… it’s all just sisterly fun. But if you decide to try this at your own Sinners, please don’t wreck your manicure. Or your diamonds. (Or the bags – even if they totally deserve punching.)
On this trip we noticed a few bags by a company called Mauve I’ve never heard of before. And indeed, many of these bags were mauve in colour (though there were many other colours too…) crafted from gorgeous, supple leather and looking all darling with their interesting shapes and profiles. But they were still pricey, and I wasn’t in the market to drop those kinds of monies on a bag that day, so I snapped up this bitchin’ teal handbag that day for a song, instead. (But don’t think for a moment I don’t still totally adore her – I DO!!)
Fast forward to my annual Christmas shopping forage in December. Whenever I do this, Martin always asks me to let him know if I see anything I desire for Christmas, since it’s probably somewhere around December 10th, and he has no ideas or clues. So I call him every time I leave a store, and report to him all the things I spied with my little eye that would make for excellent giftettes for his wife.
I was at our local Sinners. I spied a Mauve bag – one I’d punched in the face while in Toronto – and it was way, WAAAAY less expensive than I’d remembered, but still more than I was willing to spend, especially two weeks before Christmas. I described it to him in as much detail as I could muster, over the phone, and by email. I tried to be all cool about it, but it was the only one in the store…
And in the days that followed, each time I was in the store, I’d see my darling bag still hanging out with all her other purse buddies, and I seriously worried it would be gone baby gone if he didn’t act fast. I kept reminding him of her whereabouts in the store.
Finally, a few days before we we due to leave for the cottage at holiday time, I lamented to one of my foxes that he’d either not picked up the bag of my dreams, or he’d picked up the wrong one. What, OH WHAT to do? I can’t really spend that on myself, can I? And would it hurt his feelings to return whatever else he might have gotten? Could he have found the same one someplace else? Not likely… oh lord.
My wise fox, The Anarchist, simply said: Buy the damned bag. Don’t worry about the rest… two months from now, you’ll have the bag you wanted, and all this other blah-blah stuff will be forgotten. GO GET IT.
(She is so smart, that fox.)
So, I bought the bag and stowed it in the back of my closet, and on Christmas morning when I opened a box with a kinda terrible monstrous, fuschia Cynthia Rowley travel-esque bag that does NOT go with my life at all, I confessed that I’d bought the other one, and that she was within the safe confines of my closet at home. And my gorgeous husband wasn’t offended at all – just relieved I had the one I wanted, in fact.
And I’m ever so happy to have her! She makes my Big Brown Parka of Sadness look and feel more chic than sporty (which I prefer) and the scale of this large bag suits my massive up-to-here-down-to-there jacket much better than a little bag. I love the chrome hardware, and the shiny “au” on the pockets. I can wipe her down from any salt and road ick that kicks up on her when we’re walking around together too, because she’s so forgiving. And I keep hearing, “Oooooo, love your baaaaag…” from passers by when I’m out in the world. That’s never a bad thing.
She’s pretty perfect, and she goes with all my stuff. And no, I didn’t give her a name – Andrew and I think that’s weird. *snort*
mauve leather totebag by Mauve – Winners (gift)