最近与一个著名的皮包公司有亲密接触,有幸得以经常近距离(1米以内)的观赏各类名包,异常兴奋。与朋友谈起此大牌，无不崇拜，最多听到说的评价是“虽然俗为法国名牌，但是走过那么多年，阅包无数，还是它最经看，不愧为~~~~”。为此我特意很阴暗地观察、偷摸、暗掐了数位同事名包，原来名包不防水，淋了雨会变颜色！内衬乃是绒布，84意大利小牛皮？最叫我差异的是，那是帆布的，不过做的很象皮而已。
有次与朋友聊天，她用憧憬的口吻说：据说真品那是防火防水防刀割的！又有次与朋友走在路上，见一美女肩背最新款大背包，自以为是地对朋友说：看，那是XX牌的新包包。朋友鄙视地说：假的，你看不出来吗？真品上的小花都没有半朵地！搞得我面红耳赤，回公司后仔细研究各同事的真包包，发现半朵、小半朵、四分之一朵小花的大有包在！
最后得出结论，坊间各色真包不怕火炼的辩伪招数一定是伪造商家的伎俩，他们估计散出谣言，使得一众消费者一时真假难辩，于是各自买回各色防火、防水、防刀割、小牛皮衬里、外层面料不含半朵小花图案的赝品。
昨天在网站上看到说是工商局抓到冒牌包包的生产商，他们一概不承认自己造假，只说自己家的包包品牌不是著名的XX牌，而是“驴”牌。觉得可惜，何必呢，做的巧夺天工，青出于蓝，还要遮遮掩掩，不如自立门户~~~
一向不怀疑中国人民很行
中国人民很行
-
orangetabby
- Posts: 310
- Joined: 2003-12-06 12:59
我看起来有那么傻,那么虚荣么?
A photo of the bag:The Empress's New Purse
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; A21
Somewhere in the Washington area is a woman whose bad taste is exceeded only by her big wallet -- and, I have to say, her skewed values.
The Washington Bag Lady has plunked down $52,500 -- yes, you read that right -- for the Louis Vuitton Tribute Patchwork pocketbook. She is, The Post's Ylan Q. Mui reports, one of only five lucky women in North America, and 24 in the world, who can call the bag their own.
Not that you'd want to. This is not the world's priciest handbag (that's the Herm?s Croc Diamond-Encrusted Birkin) but it may be the ugliest. The Empress's New Purse is -- shh! -- a hideous hodgepodge of 14 recycled Louis Vuitton bags cut up, stitched back together and festooned with gold chains.
If Frankenstein's monster carried a purse, this is what it would look like. My theory is that Louis Vuitton executives had a bet about whether they could foist the bag on what one vice president called their "very sophisticated client."
Oui, madame, only the most discerning can appreciate its true beauty.
Indeed, phrased more politely, this is precisely the Louis Vuitton strategy: "You feel as if you must buy it . . . or else you won't be in the moment. You will be left behind," chief executive Bernard Arnault explained to Dana Thomas for her new book, "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster."
Now, I understand the allure of a new purse as much as the next shopper, though mine tend to be more of the $59.99-and-that's-before-the-20-percent-off-coupon variety. If you're rich enough to treat yourself to a $500 pocketbook, or a $5,000 one, fine -- even without the coupon.
But no moral calculus can justify $52,500, no matter how much you've given to good works. This expenditure makes Judith Giuliani look frugal in her reported relationship with her Louis Vuitton purse -- according to a Vanity Fair profile, she calls it Baby Louis and insists that it be accorded a separate seat on the Giulianis' chartered jet.
There are many lessons to be found in a handbag that costs more than my childhood home.
One is the remarkable growth in the ranks of the superwealthy. A new set of Internal Revenue Service statistics shows that the number of $1-million-plus earners grew by more than one-fourth between 2000 and 2005. If you live in the elite confines of Richistan, as the Wall Street Journal's "wealth" reporter, Robert Frank, calls it, you must find ways to dispose of all this disposable income.
This isn't a problem unique to 21st-century tycoons -- think Nero, Marie Antoinette, Gatsby. Thorsten Veblen outlined his theory of conspicuous consumption in 1899, and he could have been writing about Louis Vuitton handbags when he described the "unremitting demonstration of ability to pay." Still, as Frank writes, the rich in this gilded age "have made more money, more quickly, from more sources than any previous generation of wealth."
Simultaneously, however, there has been a democratization of luxury, which leads to the second point embedded in the purse story: Today's very rich are not as different from you and me as they were in F. Scott Fitzgerald's day. If there is to be a Gucci in every closet, the ultrawealthy need ways to distinguish themselves.
Consider: 94.3 percent of Tokyo women in their 20s own Louis Vuitton products, and half have LV handbags, according to Saison Research Institute. Thomas describes the oxymoronic phenomenon of the luxury outlet mall as "perhaps luxury's greatest ploy to get its goods into the hands of anyone and everyone."
It's also no surprise that one of the five lucky North American owners of the Tribute Patchwork is from the Washington area. (One was Beyonc? Knowles; the others have, wisely, not outed themselves.) Washington, once and perhaps eternally a fashion backwater, is now at least a place where money is spent on fashion.
Census figures released last week show that two Northern Virginia counties were the wealthiest in the nation: Fairfax, with a median household income of $100,318, and Loudoun, $99,371. Maryland was the highest-earning state, with a median income of $65,144.
Indeed, the amazing thing is that the identity of the Washington Bag Lady has not emerged since news of her purchase surfaced. Not so many years ago, there were only a few likely suspects. Now, who knows? Could be high-tech money, real estate money, K Street money, international money, venture capital money.
So if you see the Bag Lady walking -- or being driven -- down the street, do let me know who she is. Or, you could just point at her, like the boy in Hans Christian Andersen's story.
