2019 resolution - shopping my own bag and wallet collection. Any one else?

[vink]

Your experience reminds me of a former senior executive at my company. She would wear mostly Chanel suits, designer heels, hermes bags (she brought her bags to every meeting), perfectly done hair, make up, nails, etc. In a male dominated world she stood out. But she was smart, empathetic and a born leader. She was a female champion and voiced that woman should not feel they need to damper their looks or style to fit in with a male dominated workforce and instead should own their own style and image and be judged on their output. I never saw anyone comment in her looks or saw her comment on others. The topics kept to the work at hand. I really admire her and feel she changed our culture in a positive way.

I love a woman like that! Must be nice to get to work with her.

 

[vink]

What were they for you this year?
The only time I’m ok with costume jewelry is when I need a look that would be too expensive in fine jewelry. For example, I have a nice set of sparkly rhinestone jewelry that I can wear at forms occasions. But, even then, I still have some fine jewelry I can wear so I don’t trade out. It’s less bling because I can’t afford a $2million diamond necklace LOL! but, it works.

Daily, I only wear fine jewelry. Mostly white gold with or without diamonds but some yellow gold too that accents certain outfits. I keep it simple.

But, I do like it sometimes when I see others in costume. So, that’s why I was curious how others incorporate it.

Ok... I think I may have gotten a different concept of “costume jewelry” wrong again. [emoji848] In my culture, costume jewelry is any jewelry that isn’t made with real valuable stones and gold. And that include fake diamonds, resins, plastics, metal, glass, etc. Is my definition the same? [emoji848]

 

[vink]

Yikes. It’s only 2 days into the year and I’ve already missed two goals.

I said I wasn’t going to buy any sunglasses this year and then I saw a pair of Chanel sunglasses that I wanted. So they accidentally, sorta slipped into my hands and my wallet sorta slipped out to pay.

And, I was starting back with my healthy eating. But, I went to a breakfast meeting at a phenomenal little bakery / restaurant. And, the croissants were being pulled out of the oven. Soooo...

The holidays are over. I gotta get my game face on!!!!

No bags, no sunnies, no junky food. I’m repeating this like my mantra.

It’s only two days into the year. You have 363 days left. Cheer up!

 

[Annabel Lee]

Well, I'm a little bit behind on the convo, but these are my favorite shoes Saint Laurent block heel Mary Janes and Irregular Choice flats. My style is definitely LOUD!

My work environment is a creative and casual place, so most days I wear sneakers. Honestly, when I wear something even a little bit nice, without fail someone comments on it! One of my resolutions from 2018 was to not be embarrassed by my collection of luxury/fashiony items. I do feel a bit sheepish as a director flaunting expensive items, especially since I'm the youngest at my workplace and some of my co-workers are creatives living quite simply. Something about their attitude towards the material makes me question my love for fashion Does this ever happen to anyone?

I LOVE your shoes. The leopard and red is amazing.

My workplace is pretty casual, and I'm pretty not, but over time, everyone's just kind of gotten used to me. I used to be much more self-conscious about wearing my bags and made a point to rotate in lower-end ones, but over time, I just stopped doing that because nothing I carry affects my job or other people's ideas about my work. Not all offices are like that, though--in some places, being too showy can cause friction or even hurt careers.

If being fabulous isn't a problem for your work environment, keep rocking your pretty belongings.

I’ve started my new year’s cleaning & clearing. Yay!

One of the things I’m going through is a jewelry box of costume jewelry that has now travelled across 3 states with me without really being opened. I almost never wear costume jewelry but thought I may have forgotten some cute items.

Uh, no. LOL!

Most of the styles are a little dated (bib necklaces - remember those?) But, honestly, that isn’t the big issue for me. What I’m hating is the tarnish. I’m junking most of this because it just looks ratty.

This is one of the big reasons I don’t like costume jewelry. Fine jewelry doesn’t look ratty over time.

Am I missing something? Help me understand how costume jewelry can work in my wardrobe. If there is a way to be cute for fewer dollars, I’m in.

I'm a costume jewelry person. It makes it easy to have/test styles that may not withstand the test of time (like those bib necklaces!), and I can have a variety of pieces for not much money. Some of it doesn't hold up well, but as with so many things, there's a wide range of quality at a wide range of price points.

Wishing everyone best of luck for 2019 and hope we all meet our targets!
i am doing 10 on 31 and 3 newest bags, and here's 1 of them - Balenciaga Bazar

Your outfits are always so dang cool. I love this.

 

[Annabel Lee]

January 1 and I’m already having trouble keeping up!

I think I will do the New Year, New Bag challenge. As some of you know, I tracked my bag use for all of 2018, and I tallied up the totals today. I was very pleased to see that my three newest bags are all in my top 10 most worn bags, even though I got them all during the year so they had less than a year to accrue wears. That tells me I’m making better choices, and buying bags that I truly use.

For those of you who are curious, here’s my Top 10 most worn bags in 2018:
1) Hermes Evelyne GM in Etoupe — 56 wears
2) Hermes Evelyne PM in Blue Sapphire — 45 wears
3) Bottega Veneta Chain Tote in Black — 26 wears
4) Chanel Timeless Classic Tote in Black — 22 wears (this was one of the new ones, purchased at the end of May).
5) Bottega Veneta Nodini in Atlantic — 20 wears (also new this year, bought at the end of August).
6) LV Speedy B25 in Empreinte Noir — 18 wears
7) a tie between my Tumi Hagen backpack (purchased in October, so this was clearly a gap that needed filling!) and my Longchamp le Pliage large long handle in Indigo — both with 16 wears
8) Hermes Barenia Kelly 35 — 15 wears
9) Longchamp Mademoiselle in Cognac — 14 wears
10) Hermes Kelly 35 in Indigo Box — 11 wears.

This was a really eye-opening exercise and I’m so glad I did it, that I’m going to do it again this year! I knew my Evelynes got a lot of wear, but I wouldn’t have guessed they’d rank 1 and 2. The Nodini was a pleasant surprise as well. I tend to shy away from small bags. This has been so functional, I may buy another one (or go for something similar by a different designer).

On the downside, I have bags I would have described as favorites, that I barely wore at all! My Chanel Reissues fall into this category. I love the aesthetic but something about them keeps me from reaching for them. I’ll have to figure out what’s going on with that. I don’t really have any desire to sell them, but if I’m not using them ....

This is my second year tracking, and my top 10 are pretty similar between both years. Unfortunately I find that a bit disappointing because nearly all my carefree bags are in my top 10 v. bags I adore.

I'd previously focused on bags getting low wears, and I'm comfortable with the reasons they don't get worn, but now I think I need to turn my attention to those with high wears and see if I can make it easier to always wear bags I love.

 

[lynne_ross]

Costume jewelry needs taking care for, too. I have tons of costume jewelry that I keep in a tool box that separate them piece by piece. I wipe them clean of my sweat and let it air dry before store it in the box line with tissue papers. I never have one tarnished on me or even if they’re, a little cleaning with some solution will do. I even have some that are a pass-me-down from my mom and some pieces made of plastic from 20s or 50s that I bought from antique store. It’s the style you pick and how well you take care of them. Not to mention the original quality of the piece.

Good points. I was thinking of pieces from say Claire’s, but now that I think about it I have a bunch of Hermes bracelets that would be considered costume jewelry and i store them individually and they have held up well. So I take back my comments!
I do however stick to fine jewelry now since I am lazy to change up my jewelry and material such as gold can be worn in the shower, etc.

 

[whateve]

Ok... I think I may have gotten a different concept of “costume jewelry” wrong again. [emoji848] In my culture, costume jewelry is any jewelry that isn’t made with real valuable stones and gold. And that include fake diamonds, resins, plastics, metal, glass, etc. Is my definition the same? [emoji848]

That's the way I interpret it as well.

I wear mostly costume jewelry. I don't have formal occasions so for everyday I find it fun. I can get styles that are a little less conservative than I would in fine jewelry. I do have some that I inherited from my mother and some I had as a teenager but mostly I use more recent stuff, probably because my tastes and styles have changed. I've never had problems with tarnishing except for silver, which I had a lot of when I was a teen.

 

[whateve]

For those that track wears, do you count the time that you are in one bag before you change out as one or do you actually count the number of days you are still in the bag? I usually wear each bag at least 2 or 3 days before changing.

 

[Sonmi999]

The year just started and I decided to do a sort of no buy year, with some exceptions. I wrote a few rules for that and I'm still perfecting them. When it comes to luxury handbags, there will only be an absolute maximum of three this year, no more than that (and preferrably less). I only have one item on my current luxury handbag wishlist, so I'll do my best not to get carried away by new releases.
There are some other items I'm allowing myself to buy because I should be going abroad twice until April and I'll use the trips to buy stuff I can't buy at home. However, everything will be under the rules I'm building regarding price, category, usage etc.

I've been thinking about starting a Youtube channel for about two years already, but never got around to doing so, because I always thought I don't have that many unboxings and can't share clothing and stuff because my country doesn't have stores like Nordstrom, Macy's etc., so I'd be sharing clothes that most people wouldn't be able to buy if they wanted to. However, since I came to the (shameful) conclusion that I'm a shopaholic and that I spent SO much money in a very unhealthy and unwise way last year, and that I don't want that anymore in my life, I thought that this would be a good way to start a channel. I'll still talk about my luxury stuff, which I love, and how to spend more wisely, how to battle addiction to shopping, all that while enjoying what I already have, not having to constantly buy buy buy, and appreciating the very few things that I'll add this year.

Since I have no serious difficulty rotating my collection and I (at least think I) love all its pieces, the challenge I'm choosing for myself is this one. Right now I have a horrible pimple on my chin, so I can't start filming, lol, but I'll do so ASAP and post the result here if it's allowed.

Cheers to a less-spending-more-enjoying 2019!

 

[Annabel Lee]

For those that track wears, do you count the time that you are in one bag before you change out as one or do you actually count the number of days you are still in the bag? I usually wear each bag at least 2 or 3 days before changing.

I count every occasion on which I wear a bag. For me, it's by outfit/whether or not I had to change clothes. For example:

• If I go to work in the morning carrying a satchel and then to a fancy dinner that night carrying an evening clutch, I have two bag wears for the day. Even though each wear might only be a few hours, it's still an occasion where I needed a particular bag.
  
  
• Conversely, if I go to work in the morning carrying a particular bag, go home and change clothes for some other occasion but stay in the same bag, that bag just got two "wears" for the day. That's because I had the chance to change it and chose not to.
  
  
• If I don't change clothes, though, and just carry the bag over multiple events on the same day, it's still one wear. So if I go to work with a bag and then go run errands or go to dinner or whatever without changing, I count that under the same wear as when I went to work that morning.

So, under my method, if you were to wear a bag two or three days in a row, that would be at least two or three wears but could be as many as four or six if you're changing clothes in the evening.

 

[dcooney4]

For those that track wears, do you count the time that you are in one bag before you change out as one or do you actually count the number of days you are still in the bag? I usually wear each bag at least 2 or 3 days before changing.

Each day you walk out the door with it.

 

[Cookiefiend]

Whoops - lets try that again! <facepalm>

 

[Cookiefiend]

For those that track wears, do you count the time that you are in one bag before you change out as one or do you actually count the number of days you are still in the bag? I usually wear each bag at least 2 or 3 days before changing.

Each time I wear it, I count it.
So far I’ve worn my LV Lockme Bucket twice, my spreadsheet show a 2 under the January column.

 

[whateve]

Each time I wear it, I count it.
So far I’ve worn my LV Lockme Bucket twice, my spreadsheet show a 2 under the January column. View attachment 4294450

I hope I can stick to it. I'm afraid I'll get lazy or forget.

 

[lynne_ross]

Each time I wear it, I count it.
So far I’ve worn my LV Lockme Bucket twice, my spreadsheet show a 2 under the January column. View attachment 4294450

Excel is probably best idea. I am starting with paper since it is in my closet!
I hope you post a pic of your vibrato picotin at some point - sounds gorgeous!