2021 Resolution: Shopping my own bag and SLG collection. Any one else?

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NOVEMBER ACTIVITIES

1. Bags by Brand Showcase!

Each week, share photos of your bags from the specified brands. Choose a posed “beauty” shot or get your bags out and about in action shots!

We highlight 3 brands per week: 2 premier and 1 contemporary in alphabetical order as listed on tPF. Any brands not listed are showcased in our last week. Brands change to the next set each Sunday.

Our first brand week starts now - Sunday, Oct 31. Please share photos of bags from these brands:
  • Bottega Venetta
  • Burberry
  • Alexander Wang

Tip: Grab your photos from last year in the 2020 resolution thread. Search your user name and the brand to find your photos.

2. Special Stories
Thanks @Claudia Herzog for the suggestion

Wear a bag that has a backstory involving a person, place, or opportunity for which you feel grateful.
 
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Thank you for explaining the concept of acquisition rate. I am going to try this! in 2019, I purchased an HG expensive item, my 30cm Black togo Birkin, I wore it a lot! it's surprisingly practical however, I find, I'm not fond of the togo leather, the color isn't saturated as I'd like it looks like a soft black than a true black unlike my Kelly, which is deeply saturated. I'm now considering replacing it same specs but with the new leather Veau Jonathan, what do you guys think? this will be a challenge for me as I don't have a boutique close to me. One is supposed to open in early 2021, we'll see.. @More bags @880 , @papertiger all opinions welcome from everyone. The fine Jewelry pieces I plan to add are, an 18k yellow gold Tiffany Elsa Peretti bean bracelet, and an Elsa peretti platinum and diamond bean necklace.

2020 put a wrench in things for sure! great goals for 2021!

Great goals! i'm with you on the shopping sustainably!
I would totally trade the togo for Veau Jonathan in a B30. But I really don't like pebbled leathers. Others do. Keep us posted!
 
My trick when I feel insecure about wearing a new item or bag is: I take them to completely mundane activities that do not involve much time or meeting people. So for example, a quick trip to the pharmacy or the baker’s. That is for items like this bag, where you know you love them but you have not yet worked out how to fit them into your style or they are a bit out there for you. Just grab them and go. Take them to a trip to the dry cleaners, or to pick up some take away, and you will feel much more confortable about them.

Another trick is to take them on a trip, where you will then be giving yourself less choices. Plus one is always more daring when in unknown territory. But this does not work in Covid times...
Very good advice! Thank you. I think I'll use it on New Year's day when I go for my sunrise walk- a good way to break the bag and the year in. :biggrin:
so I'm starting from the point of 'I'm not good enough' - I suppose it's related to a & c and imposter syndrome. The way I personally get over these points it to give myself a 'use it or lose it' ultimatum (which is why I sold off quite a few amazing vintage bags I was lucky enough to own at one time).
I definitely feel like you described me in points a & c, and certainly imposter syndrome is a factor for me in various areas of my life. Perhaps a personal goal for me in 2021 should be to just use every one of my bags, including the ones that I've been holding off on until some arbitrary appropriate age/ phase of life/ point where I will feel good enough for it...
 
Very good advice! Thank you. I think I'll use it on New Year's day when I go for my sunrise walk- a good way to break the bag and the year in. :biggrin:

I definitely feel like you described me in points a & c, and certainly imposter syndrome is a factor for me in various areas of my life. Perhaps a personal goal for me in 2021 should be to just use every one of my bags, including the ones that I've been holding off on until some arbitrary appropriate age/ phase of life/ point where I will feel good enough for it...

:ghi5:

Become or start to become the person you longed to be now/from now (saying this today to myself) I'm not even gonna wait for lockdown to be over. I'm usually better at overcoming this but one of my 'things' that I need to work on is go for and go towards long term aims rather than tick boxes and short-term goals which are often more for work/other people and doing chores anyway.
 
What a beautiful picture! :love: We are bag twins on the Etoupe Evelyne PM, it’s my most frequently carried bag. Could you please tell me more about the bag on the bottom row, second from the right? It looks similar to a Ferragamo Gancini bag - I love the look of that bag.
You have good eyes! It is a Ferragamo Margot bag. I believe it is the larger size, in gray. I love it, so well made. It is my official 'Grown Up' bag. I wear it when I need to look like an adult.
 
@jblended, when I read your response about bags that are too old, or too young and the clamour of your inner child (fashion wise ), something about your post made me think about about a thread possibly started by @papertiger about whether we feel ignored. . . (as in things are not advertised or meant for our demographic; or they just don’t ‘speak’ to us. . .

My response was, are we overthinking or being too sensitive? I actually responded that I feel that gen x ( I’m 53) is kind of the odd one out. We’re not as unapologetically stylistically defined as boomers are. And, we’re not hip and relaxed millenial or Y or whatever the category is that loves life experiences more than things. we’re in between and Constangly striving. . .

Re your ‘too young‘ round bag, you could wear it with jeans (to ‘mundane activities’ like the bakery or pharmacy as per @doni) (as an aside, I am now picturing @doni wearing cream helmet Lang leather pants to buy toothpaste at the pharmacy); you could warehouse it until you re much older, and then it will become part of your self described ‘frivolous‘ style; or you could let it go. . . (IMO part of that decision for me would be bag hardware). You could also pair it with doc martens whcih can look great on older petite people and instantly gives some irony to an outfit.

@More bags,
1. I still have a roving eye re beauty, but some beauty isn’t me, so I don’t have to own it. If you still have a roving eye, are you subconsciously still looking to upgrade or replace? or perhaps, you just love eye candy :biggrin: I feel that way about a lot of VCA: Alhambra with a few exceptions looks wrong on me (like I’ve borrowed from an acquaintances waspy friends mom’s closet) (@PaperTigers imposter syndrome). @whateve, I’m at the point where i want to face up to the fact, the beautiful bag won’t make me look like the gorgeous model peddling it In the ad campaign, and sometimes that’s enough to stop me.
2. re platonic ideals, the hobo, Usually larger bc of its hobo ness and usually worn with jeans casually. Depending on mood and my weight, I’m either a 35 trim II or a BV Veneta large Bc of silhouette. within the Trim, I vacillate between the 35 Trim II Togo (though I have not yet gotten rid of 35 Trim II barenia — it doesn’t slouch as attractively— or the too east west 31 barenia crinoline Trim II — bc I love crinoline). When I feel heavy ( and or my wrist acts up and I cannot deal with bag weight or I want something to stay on the shoulder), I turn to the BV Veneta large. I think @muchstuff once spoke of certain BV models being too sticky outy until worn in, and I agree with that, but some models kind of wrap around the torso and conceal the muffin top, so those appeal to me. . . note: I am of an age that remembers the yearning to be a skinny girl in slim leggings with lots of hair and a big unstructured bag. . IRL, I’m short but medium build, and something like the mini BV Jodi Looks ridiculous on me Like a toy.
3. as for the crossbody, there are sub categories: 1. the practical mom bag (evelyne III in either 29 or 33); the cute mini (I like a practical men’s ghurka p bc it’s larger and cheaper than the H tpm but still small); th efrivolous like a chanel so black mini.
there are bags that defy broad categories. For example, a birkin is a tote and so is a Goyard St. louis, but they are in different universes altogether. . .
4. bags that are too mature make me think of pre 2008. I was basically a chanel person until that year bc I bought a lot of RTW. (@dcooney4, its ready to wear, referring to designer off the rack clothing, as opposed to MtM (made to measure, something that is a standard format, tailored to fit your frame) or custom. ( measured to fit); and, a mature bag can look really cute on a young thin individual. But the price point made me think I should switch to H,a new I did Except for a few reissues, none of which I wear except the mini. I think I keep them in case mymom needs to borrow them or in case, like @sherrylynn, I need to look like an adult. @sherrylynn, forgot to say, I love your well edited bag collection, and there are some good deals on bolides on eBay and japanese reseller sites and elsewhere (of course, authenticate and do due diligence bf purchase).

@paper tiger, I would have passed on the vibrato barenia oil stain too. But it would have been a struggle. I am also not a lucite or raffia person, but I keep hoping if I ever can drop the perennial 10 or 20 pounds and ever start blow drying my hair on a regular basis (neither of which is likely to happen). . . No it will never be my style.
@Hazzelnut, I also don’t have a problem with a majority of my closet not being touched in years so long as I can imagine it actually happening (like in the realm of possibility and not just fantasy). I didn’t invest in teh BV pouch, for this reason, but I liked the style enough to buy two pouch type bags on Etsy.
@momasaurus, I also had given up my first H bag, BBK ghw, bc it was ghw. After years of deciding i was not a kelly person, I just boughta BBK, phw, retourne (a big departure for this sellier lover) in part bc it was a great deal. I love it. for bags, HW is a deal breaker for me.
apologies, I did not mean to write a novel!
p.s. @Purses & Perfumes, what brand of cloth dish towels Do you recommend?
 
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My other latest purchases. These 4 plus my paratay, and a Massaccesi midi Juliet ($135 SHIPPED !!) from eBay and an aphrodite ($75 SHIPPED!) from the MM BST are my 6 December bag purchases. I bought 3 in Nov and Oct but 5 in September and none in 2020 before. 17 total this year. I think. But sold 8. So I've acquired 9. But I have not lost any money, I've actually profited around $5k this year on bag flips. And that's accounting for a missing in the mail $750 Chanel. Ok I'm being kind, being scammed by the buyer. Starting a few hours ago I am being attempted scammed the $75 I got for my Burberry trench three weeks ago.
I'm done with selling.
My goals for next year still involve not earning any money at all, but actually spending 12% of my salary on purses and having a 100% acquisition success rate. I just don't want to spend time on it anymore. I want to buy a house and set up a craft room and start crafting with my daughters.
Nice! My sadness about Massaccesi is that they don't fetch much on the secondary market. I bought a lot of stuff in their early years (it was so much fun to customize everything!), but almost never wore them, and sold some for pathetically small amounts. So at the moment, I'm keeping my MM bags even though I don't wear them.
 
I have a spreadsheet that shows exactly what I paid and I've instructed my daughter to use it if she decides to get rid of my stuff.

We have tax deductions for charity too but you can only use it if you itemize your deductions and since they changed the tax code, most people just take the standard deduction.
I've done the same with DD. She laughs now but it will certainly help her later. DS recently heard us mention this but didn't say anything. But in a year or so he will ask where is the list of stuff for him! :P
 
The idea that helped me the most in my long tortuous editing journey (I’ve been actively selling and editing my collection for over a decade with varying success) was a concept of:

You and your stuff are in business; you’re the CEO and all your stuff is employees. What job does each thing do? What do you need it to do? How does it support the life you want to live?

So I was able to look at my bag collection and say “I wear this at X,Y and Z. Who else do I wear in those occasions? Will I have enough of those occasions to justify the redundancy? And which do I like best and why?”

So, I’m not banned. I just have a hiring freeze going on. And I’m not selling crap, I’m career counseling my stuff-employees into new positions.

For example, I have a dark red Mulberry Smithfield and a bright red BV deerskin Creel. One’s a hand-carry satchel, one is a crossbody. One’s sturdy thick leather, the other more delicate and smaller. When looking all the characteristics, they are dramatically different bags. But they do the same darn job. Letting go of one allowed the other to be better at doing it’s job.

Now, clutches? Their primary job is to sparkle and make me smile and I treat them like art. So, having a ridiculously high level of redundancy is fine as long as I still have space for them.
I love this post so much!
 
I use vinegar by the gallon, for everything, from cleaning surfaces and removing calc to clothes softener. It is a constant battle with the cleaning lady, who is of the opinion that as concerns cleaning products, the more toxic the better must be... :P

Can you tell us about your system for using kitchen towels and rags? I love that kind of thing.
And it is not too OT right? As it is about using things in ward[cup]boards after all...
Ha, ha, yes we discuss many things in this thread, so why not a system for kitchen towels? :biggrin: Not too off topic I think. But my system is nothing special -- many of you may already be following this system.

So I have two towels in my kitchen -- one is the hand towel hanging from my oven door which I use to dry hands. The second is a dish towel/rag that I keep beside the kitchen sink to wipe down the wet areas around the sink. I also use this dish towel/rag to wipe down any spills on the counter, etc. There isn't exactly a system as such but two changes I made this year have been very helpful. The first thing is that every night, I change the dish towel/rag so I start each day with a fresh, clean dish towel/rag ready for the sinks and counters, and I also launder these towels at the end of the week. I know people who have towels with the day printed on it for each specific day of the week, but I'm not that systematic.

The other thing that made a difference was using very good high quality dish towels and hand towels. For the hand towels, which are only used to dry hands, I found this very important because I wash my hands so often and drying them on a lesser quality towel actually dried the skin more because they were not soft enough. Having hand towels that are very soft and absorb quickly has helped my dry hands! The dish towels also need to be very high quality to withstand regular washings and cleaning spills, etc. The last thing I did was put away my paper towel roll in a different room, so I am not tempted to reach for it every time there was a spill or some such thing.
 
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It can be very disenchanting, clearing out bags, wondering how to find new homes for them. Over the years, I accumulated various sorts of bags. I have a strange attraction to denim style bags, and I found a box of denim backpacks, messengers, etc. along with various other brands (Dooney, Ralph Lauren, Patricia Nash, Brahmin, Burberry, Mulberry, random ones from discount stores, MK, etc). I had no idea where to put them, so I started piling them into my garden tub, which I never use. This continued for over a year, until COVID struck and I had time off from work to finally do something with them. I had imagined grand plans to photograph and list some on ebay, until I realized after listing one or 2, what a hassle and headache it was to deal with buyer's complaints, fees, shipping, etc..etc....so the pile remained untouched and grew some more. I made a decision to only use my favorite brand, and eliminate the rest. The ones that I could resell to FP or Yoogi's, I did, mostly at a loss. The rest went into 3 very large boxes and my hubby dropped them off at the Goodwill so we could write them off our taxes this year. I thought I would feel seriously deflated after these left the house, but surprisingly, I don't! The title of the thread is my mantra now. If it won't fit into the dedicated space I have for my collection (1 in, 1 out) I can't acquire it. I do seem to find myself wanting to add more SLGs and accessories though... Anyway, sorry to ramble on but my point is, that sometimes your best intentions to profit from your unused bags will wither down to just donating them to a charity, and it can feel liberating.
Not rambling at all. In this thread we LOVE hearing people's histories, thought process, musings, mistakes, goals, longings, changes of mind, etc.!
 
This is a very thoughtful question.
We spend a lot of time discussing why we buy bags but not so much editing. What is your top priority for letting go of a bag?

*Nerd alert - long post*
First, I like to ask, what is your goal? Which bags to exit will vary based on the goal, the why, for example,
  • To generate maximum cash => sell highest resale value bags
  • To generate quick return => sell well known/popular styles and brands
  • To make room => sell largest bags
I spent time reflecting on why I exited bags from my bag wardrobe and identified key themes, including,
  • Functional issues
  • My style changed
  • My lifestyle changed
  • They are not being worn
  • They are being replaced with something I like better
If I am not reaching for a bag, I like to understand why, is it the size, colour, style, high maintenance or functionality?
  • Too heavy
  • Too big
  • Too small capacity
  • Short strap drop
  • Strap is too long
  • Too boxy
  • Base is too wide/sticks out from my body
  • Not easy to use, ex. fiddly clasp
  • Opening is too hard to get into
  • Colour doesn’t coordinate with my wardrobe
  • Faux leather
  • Leather or material doesn’t feel good
  • Style looks dated
  • I no longer like/use that style, ex. monogram
  • I have something similar/does the same job that I like better
  • Duplicate colour, function, style to another bag I like more
  • Duplicate pattern (canvas) to another bag I like more
  • Open top, items spill out when bag falls over
  • Zipper slides open while in use
  • Things fall out, ex. foldover clutch
  • I couldn’t keep it looking as fresh as I wanted to, ex. white, damier azur, vachetta
  • Requires work to use it, ex. transfer wallet contents into WOC
  • Bag is not wearing well, handles, seams, corners
  • Lifestyle change, no longer need corporate style bags
  • Maintaining collection size, ie. one in one out
  • I bought it when I really wanted something else
  • It has served its purpose
  • Doesn’t work in my predominant climate, ex. doesn’t fit over winter coats when I live in a climate with a long winter, or exotic in wet climate
  • I have multiples
  • I have someone who wants to buy it or someone who likes it and I can donate it to them
An alternate approach to decluttering is to think of what do I want to keep vs. what do I want to get rid of.
  • Collect, choose, eliminate, organize
  • What do I use regularly and love
  • Keep what you use, need and love
  • Purge anything you don’t need, use, want or love
  • Would I buy this now
  • Photograph different groups of bags (by colour, size, brand, function, etc.), identify your favourite and least favourite bag
  • Have I worn it in the past 12 months
  • Do I love it
  • Do I love the way it makes me feel when I carry it
  • Does it represent my current style, lifestyle
  • Is this looking worn out
  • Does it project the image I want to project
  • Would I reach for this over similar pieces
  • Can I think of three outfits I would wear this with
  • Do I have somewhere to wear it? (think in non Covid times)
  • Do I need this, does this bag still fill a particular need
Best wishes to all of us on choosing to keep and use our most loved bags. :heart: :hbeat::love:
This is such a great post!
My problems, when I reflect on bag use, are:
1 remembering what purse-carrying life was like before Covid
2 wondering if that life will return (concert-going, riding trains, overnight trips, etc.) or if having found that making do with just a Calvi in my pocket will change everything about what I carry in the future.
 
:ghi5:

Become or start to become the person you longed to be now/from now (saying this today to myself) I'm not even gonna wait for lockdown to be over. I'm usually better at overcoming this but one of my 'things' that I need to work on is go for and go towards long term aims rather than tick boxes and short-term goals which are often more for work/other people and doing chores anyway.
Wonderfully put! I'm guilty of the focusing on the short-term goals, though that was partly because I had a rather short life expectancy and thought there was no point in thinking beyond the age of (now rapidly approaching) 40.
But there's a saying you've reminded me of: 'In ten years, you will have arrived. The question is where?'
I think I want to visualize the kind of person I'd like to be in a decade's time now that my health issues appear to be resolved and there's every possibility I will still be around then (assuming, that is, I don't get run over by a bus tomorrow morning which, given my luck, could very well happen :lol:).
And the next step would be to work towards being that person by starting immediately!
Ooh, I feel rather inspired! Thank you for the little pick-me-up. :flowers:

Re your ‘too young‘ round bag, you could wear it with jeans (to ‘mundane activities’ like the bakery or pharmacy as per @doni) (as an aside, I am now picturing @doni wearing cream helmet Lang leather pants to buy toothpaste at the pharmacy); you could warehouse it until you re much older, and then it will become part of your self described ‘frivolous‘ style; or you could let it go. . . (IMO part of that decision for me would be bag hardware)

And I've been doing just that with the round bag. After over a year of it sitting on my shelf, I pulled it out and I made it casual, thinking if people can make a Chanel casual, I can certainly do so with this little thing. I started wearing it for walks, to the store, just whenever I was popping out quickly. Functionally, it has proven to be perfect for me. It is just the right size and very light on my shoulder. And I happen to love round bags, so it's a keeper. It did take some effort to get over the 'it's a bit formal, it's a bit too proper, etc.' mindset I had when I first got it. Now that's definitely a thought I will challenge moving forwards. :tup:
 
This is such a great post!
My problems, when I reflect on bag use, are:
1 remembering what purse-carrying life was like before Covid
2 wondering if that life will return (concert-going, riding trains, overnight trips, etc.) or if having found that making do with just a Calvi in my pocket will change everything about what I carry in the future.
This is definitely something that comes to my mind often. It will be interesting to note how our habits change once we turn the page on this rather taxing experience.
 
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