2024 Resolution: Shopping my own Bag and SLG Collection

[Sparkletastic]

December Activities and Challenges - pick and choose as you please.

I. 2024 Year In Review Reflection
(Thanks @Vintage Leather)

Utilize these thought starters to evaluate your collection, your usage patterns and your lessons learned in 2024.
• What is your most useful purse?
• What is your best purchase of the year?
• We’ve all had a lot of lifestyle changes this year - how has it affected your style?
• What is the one thing we’ve learned this year that you want to take into the next?

II. Setting 2025 Goals
Take this month to consider what you want to do with your handbag collection, wardrobe or even your beautiful life in 2025. Share these thoughts in January when we start the 2026 Shopping Your Closet thread.

III. End of year optional challenges

• Holiday colors: December has many holidays celebrated across the world - red & green, brown & gold, blue & white and more! Pick the holiday that you want to honor and wear / show off your bags in those traditional colors.

• End with a bang: As we come to the last part of the year, wear the last bag you’ve purchased at least 3 times this month.

@Vlad please pin this to the top of our thread.

 

[Vintage Leather]

I bought a new Balmain edgy evening/occasion bag, and one almost-vintage preloved BV Knot because I missed out on it 14 years ago. It got me thinking - as buying new bags always does.

Back stories:

Balmain Madame Jolie in black/black:
I got heavily sloshed at an evening Balmain event and the bag looked so cool with what I was wearing It will be forever futuristic looking which will 'harden-up' a classic LBD or make me feel like Trinity (Matrix). Interesting evening bags are either novelty or serious, this seems like a hybrid. A nice daytime restaurant bag. Plus, the price wasn't outrageous.

BV 2010 Knot:
I loved BV's Resort '10 at the time, and heavily invested in a Poupre python tote bag and my pink flouro lizard/silver bangle ran out of money. When BV brought back the (variation of) the Knot back I a) could not believe the prices almost £3K, that's British pounds. The lizard was almost $2K in 2010 but it's an exotic, I got that figure from our PurseBlog as Megs has a yellow-green version + b) Even looking through the new, they are all a bit too tameI couldn't help but think about the pink lizzie Knot, esp. since I would love to pair bangle + bag with an LBD.

I have to think extra hard since we've been on these annual threads about bag purchases, actually, I think harder and harder, and I believe we all have.

For what reasons or back stories made you buy recent new or new-to-you bags?

At Easter, I bought a 90s era black with red lining Gucci bamboo top handle bag.

And lord, but that bag and I have a complicated relationship, mostly tied up in my relationship with overconsumption and being darn good at shopping.

I think I mentioned before in this thread that I have several relatives who are antique dealers, and that I worked as an appraiser for an estate liquidation company at one time? Basically, if someone moved or died, they’d take their most precious things, and we’d deal with the rest - selling what we could, donating what we couldn’t, and hiring cleaners.

It messed with my idea of value. People used to love things, but now they weren’t worth the effort of packing up. I wanted to save the things. I felt like my life would be successful if I could be rich enough that a kitchen full of All Clad and Le Creuset wasn’t worth the effort of moving. And then, I also never wanted to have so much stuff I had to pay other people to get rid of the things.

I was allowed to buy anything I didn’t appraise. At one point, I had over 40 Gucci bags, and over 100 designer bags. (And a tree full of Radko ornaments) And then I changed careers, and I realized that I was spending an insane amount of time trying to care for all of these bags, and I was reading minimalist blogs about how owning things own you.

So I decided I’d upgrade and eliminate bags. My grandmother was an Hermes customer in the 60s, as was one of my clients, an elegant Parisian expatriate fine porcelain dealer. So I started obsessing over the Kelly - I’d finally be elegant and have my life together if I had that bag.

Spoiler Alert: it didn’t quite work that way.

If I hadn’t carried it in a year, I let it go. If it was too similar to another bag? Byebye. If it was a color that didn’t work well in my wardrobe, it was cut. I eliminated down to 19 bags, keeping only two Guccis, a two-tone brown shoulder bag with horsebit detail which was my first designer bag, and an oversized tan day clutch with an enamel jockey hat clasp. The BTH was considered to be too similar to the Kelly - especially since both bags were a rich chocolate brown, and I let it go at a reasonable profit (which is still less than half of current resale, but that’s an issue for another day)

But minimalism and spark joy and all of that really only works when you put in the mental work first. If you start with the idea of the lifestyle you want, and trim away the excess that’s preventing that. If you just eliminate because you have too much stuff, you end up with storage space for more stuff.

And the Kelly wasn’t a magical fairy godmother bag that transformed my whole life. It’s a travel bag - designed to hold your stuff securely while moving rather than designed to give you easy access. It’s a highly recognizable bag - and strangers around me commented on it. I thought about reselling it, but I kept remembering the bth

I started being nostalgic about the BTH. It was easy to access. It stored more than the Kelly for the same size (more of a box shape than a triangle.) No one ever commented on it when I carried it, unless I was in a tiki bar. It became the Folly of my Youth, and the bag I searched for online at midnight.

And… finally, I broke down and bought it back in black with a red lining.

And it’s difficult to carry? And I stuff too much in my bags, which doesn’t work with a rigid top handle.

After a decade and a half of self doubt, I own my old friend. And I have to accept the fact that it’s an occasional bag for me, rather than a daily. And I am drawn to slouchy satchels and Hobo bags, and I have a 70s Jackie-Kennedy in NYC aesthetic. And that 30-35 bags is my sweet spot for a collection size.

 

[More bags]

as promised, evening clutch by daylight


View attachment 5987391

What a beauty!

 

[whateve]

Glad to be getting such a positive response so far.

The Bal Forum is not so keen. I think the issue is the members there are more aficionados and collectors and I'm more wanting to use the bag. With Gucci, BV and Hermes, I am inspecting every mm, those a leather goods purveyors, but Bal is high-fashion, and this really would be more of an everyday, fashion statement for me, rather than a prize-position to display and fondle.

I am worried they (Bal forum members) think the metallic would peel. Bal bags are made at Gucci factories, and I have both metallic mirror-leather Gucci Romy (2007) and Bal Bowling (2009) so far no problems. I'm hoping that the reluctance to love the revival LC bag is just because they already have the precious originals. There's also a preference for the older smooth silver version (see Rose's thread) Personally, I prefer the cracked metallic finish because not only do I have other kinds of metallics (as before, croc-print Tanner Krolle Latch, BV gunmetal cervo, iridescent blue Sergio Rossi and others) but trying on the mirror leather Ferragamo showed me that a small silver bag can disappear. People buy silver shoes all the time, they get a lot more wear than a bag, so I am hoping.

If I do get it, no more dreaming about a yellow bag (like that eel SDJ last year) and no new Gucci bag (I was thinking about a patent Jackie but would be another £1K for the same-ish size).

I spend a bit of time in the Bal forum and I can attest most of them are interested in the oldies. There aren't very many talking about the new styles. I have several older Bals but the main reason I have those and not new ones is that I was able to get them for very good prices on the second hand market. What makes older Bals so great is the leather and the colors. Unfortunately a lot of the great colors faded.

I think the Bal you are looking at is gorgeous. You might be able to tell how durable the finish is once you handle it.

 

[papertiger]

At Easter, I bought a 90s era black with red lining Gucci bamboo top handle bag.

And lord, but that bag and I have a complicated relationship, mostly tied up in my relationship with overconsumption and being darn good at shopping.

I think I mentioned before in this thread that I have several relatives who are antique dealers, and that I worked as an appraiser for an estate liquidation company at one time? Basically, if someone moved or died, they’d take their most precious things, and we’d deal with the rest - selling what we could, donating what we couldn’t, and hiring cleaners.

It messed with my idea of value. People used to love things, but now they weren’t worth the effort of packing up. I wanted to save the things. I felt like my life would be successful if I could be rich enough that a kitchen full of All Clad and Le Creuset wasn’t worth the effort of moving. And then, I also never wanted to have so much stuff I had to pay other people to get rid of the things.

I was allowed to buy anything I didn’t appraise. At one point, I had over 40 Gucci bags, and over 100 designer bags. (And a tree full of Radko ornaments) And then I changed careers, and I realized that I was spending an insane amount of time trying to care for all of these bags, and I was reading minimalist blogs about how owning things own you.

So I decided I’d upgrade and eliminate bags. My grandmother was an Hermes customer in the 60s, as was one of my clients, an elegant Parisian expatriate fine porcelain dealer. So I started obsessing over the Kelly - I’d finally be elegant and have my life together if I had that bag.

Spoiler Alert: it didn’t quite work that way.

If I hadn’t carried it in a year, I let it go. If it was too similar to another bag? Byebye. If it was a color that didn’t work well in my wardrobe, it was cut. I eliminated down to 19 bags, keeping only two Guccis, a two-tone brown shoulder bag with horsebit detail which was my first designer bag, and an oversized tan day clutch with an enamel jockey hat clasp. The BTH was considered to be too similar to the Kelly - especially since both bags were a rich chocolate brown, and I let it go at a reasonable profit (which is still less than half of current resale, but that’s an issue for another day)

But minimalism and spark joy and all of that really only works when you put in the mental work first. If you start with the idea of the lifestyle you want, and trim away the excess that’s preventing that. If you just eliminate because you have too much stuff, you end up with storage space for more stuff.

And the Kelly wasn’t a magical fairy godmother bag that transformed my whole life. It’s a travel bag - designed to hold your stuff securely while moving rather than designed to give you easy access. It’s a highly recognizable bag - and strangers around me commented on it. I thought about reselling it, but I kept remembering the bth

I started being nostalgic about the BTH. It was easy to access. It stored more than the Kelly for the same size (more of a box shape than a triangle.) No one ever commented on it when I carried it, unless I was in a tiki bar. It became the Folly of my Youth, and the bag I searched for online at midnight.

And… finally, I broke down and bought it back in black with a red lining.

And it’s difficult to carry? And I stuff too much in my bags, which doesn’t work with a rigid top handle.

After a decade and a half of self doubt, I own my old friend. And I have to accept the fact that it’s an occasional bag for me, rather than a daily. And I am drawn to slouchy satchels and Hobo bags, and I have a 70s Jackie-Kennedy in NYC aesthetic. And that 30-35 bags is my sweet spot for a collection size.

You've gone through so much with bags and 'baggage'. It's only through knowing ourselves and what we value we start to make the better choices. You sound like you hit your stride.

I totally agree that people don't value things like they used to. Just looking at the difference of how people looked after a bag in the pristine 1960s V some early new bag bought for thousands but squashed, dry, dented, pen-marked and dirty Funny thing was when my father used to clean and polish his Gucci shoes, belt, briefcase regularly on the kitchen table. Newspaper under paper tablecloth to save the table, only one colour leather done at a time, mostly brushing and polishing. I never saw him use commercial cleaners. He was a master craftsman himself, so I guess, it was do it properly or not at all. He wore one Gucci belt every day 1987 to '00s and I only changed the well loved (but still supple) strap 2009. Using and valuing are missing from the whole collecting and keeping.

 

[papertiger]

2 more bags to goodwill/charity today (1960s wanna-be Gucci holdall and a neon Union Jack wristlet) and a pair of unworn shoes, so fabulous and embroidered but so so pointy I was scared of tripping over my own toes .

I had Korean dinner out with a friend wearing dark denim Levi 'hot pants', black boots, cognac roll neck with brass rivets , teal velvet blazer, lots of rings, Gucci black travel tote and a 140 teal/floral Liberty silk scarf. As you can tell, I wanted it to me Spring but it was still Winter I'm back home, still wearing my jacket and put a woolly hat on too.

 

[papertiger]

Oh Dear! I fear I won’t be the good friend I need to be to you on this one because I want you to get them all. You’ve picked 3 pieces that are adorable! The Cartier necklace is beautiful. I love the fact that it has 2 each of the rg & yg circlets to the 1 wg. And the beaded chain is beautiful.

I hadn’t heard of the Asprey Sunflowers line either. But, I love it’s whimsical but still sophisticated look. It actually reminds me of a yg floral necklace I have. I’ll also share a picture of that later.

And then, as your third choice, you pick a metallic (yay!) bag in a model I’ve always wanted in my collection but never have found the right model to add. These are all accessories thirst traps!

My thoughts are to get the Bal since it is likely to not be available soon. When possible I prefer to get metallic bags new because the previous owner of a metallic bag may have not been careful with it thereby setting up future issues with the bag.

A strong second choice is the Cartier necklace. You know this works for you and it would add to your existing set.

I’d be most comfortable waiting on the sunflower bracelet for the reasons that you mentioned. You would have to get it made. It’s a little cost prohibitive and you could possibly get the exact same thing at a great discount resale plus there’s no rush to get this and you could wait until a holiday, another birthday, or when you get a bonus and pick it up then.

This is an inspired beauty

So glad you approve! I know, it would be nice to have everything, but not everything at once.

Good points, especially about metallic bags and the LC is so heavily promoted, Kate moss no less.

I'll check-out the Cartier with the Diamonds, It will go up so I can't wait too long I will scout around for possible sighings of Aspreys sunflower bracelet.

 

[papertiger]

What a beauty!

Thank you, my phone is much better in daylight

 

[textilegirl]

DH's Gucci shoes are so gorgeous! I had a Gucci bespoke pair made using the same style (but choosing different colours).

De-lurking to say that I assumed that was DH, and that while your boots are pretty cool, his shoes are FAB!!!!...back to my chair in the back row . Hoping he's doing well and will be by your side soon

 

[papertiger]

De-lurking to say that I assumed that was DH, and that while your boots are pretty cool, his shoes are FAB!!!!...back to my chair in the back row . Hoping he's doing well and will be by your side soon

Yes, I saw them first and made him buy them but I'm pleased he loved them too. I have Cambridges (metallic black and white) and Gideons (red ostrich) but the colour of DH's are especially with his grey suit. He wasn't doing great yesterday but says he's 'back' today, thank you I hope you and yours are good.

 

[880]

2 more bags to goodwill/charity today (1960s wanna-be Gucci holdall and a neon Union Jack wristlet) and a pair of unworn shoes, so fabulous and embroidered but so so pointy I was scared of tripping over my own toes .

I had Korean dinner out with a friend wearing dark denim Levi 'hot pants', black boots, cognac roll neck with brass rivets , teal velvet blazer, lots of rings, Gucci black travel tote and a 140 teal/floral Liberty silk scarf. As you can tell, I wanted it to me Spring but it was still Winter I'm back home, still wearing my jacket and put a woolly hat on too.

I need to see a photo of this please as a style inspiration pic. Glad your DH is doing better today

ETA: I do love the evening bag for daytime

 

[papertiger]

I need to see a photo of this please as a style inspiration pic. Glad your DH is doing better today

ETA: I do love the evening bag for daytime

Ha ha, too late. I will reenact tomorrow and just hope it's a little bit warmer

 

[Sparkletastic]

Here’s a pair of metallic gold Manolos I’m eying that might fit the bill? They’re slides, but… I love gold metallic sandals and bags/clutches because I find them to be excellent neutrals - as long as they’re the right gold for me. Some can be too… gold, if that makes sense? When it’s they right gold, they are fun, but not so flashy that they take away from the rest of the outfit.

Manolo Blahnik Susa Metallic Crisscross Flat Sandals

Shop Manolo Blahnik Susa Metallic Crisscross Flat Sandals at Neiman Marcus. Find the latest luxury fashions from top designers.

www.neimanmarcus.com

I completely understand your point about the intensity of gold. I struggle because when I buy yg jewelry 18k is my floor so it’s very rich. But in leathers I prefer a more subtle gold. I have a pair of Valentino rockstud strappy heels and they’re GOLD -almost orange-y. I constantly think I should sell them as they aren’t my cuppa.

At Easter, I bought a 90s era black with red lining Gucci bamboo top handle bag.

And lord, but that bag and I have a complicated relationship, mostly tied up in my relationship with overconsumption and being darn good at shopping.

I think I mentioned before in this thread that I have several relatives who are antique dealers, and that I worked as an appraiser for an estate liquidation company at one time? Basically, if someone moved or died, they’d take their most precious things, and we’d deal with the rest - selling what we could, donating what we couldn’t, and hiring cleaners.

It messed with my idea of value. People used to love things, but now they weren’t worth the effort of packing up. I wanted to save the things. I felt like my life would be successful if I could be rich enough that a kitchen full of All Clad and Le Creuset wasn’t worth the effort of moving. And then, I also never wanted to have so much stuff I had to pay other people to get rid of the things.

I was allowed to buy anything I didn’t appraise. At one point, I had over 40 Gucci bags, and over 100 designer bags. (And a tree full of Radko ornaments) And then I changed careers, and I realized that I was spending an insane amount of time trying to care for all of these bags, and I was reading minimalist blogs about how owning things own you.

So I decided I’d upgrade and eliminate bags. My grandmother was an Hermes customer in the 60s, as was one of my clients, an elegant Parisian expatriate fine porcelain dealer. So I started obsessing over the Kelly - I’d finally be elegant and have my life together if I had that bag.

Spoiler Alert: it didn’t quite work that way.

If I hadn’t carried it in a year, I let it go. If it was too similar to another bag? Byebye. If it was a color that didn’t work well in my wardrobe, it was cut. I eliminated down to 19 bags, keeping only two Guccis, a two-tone brown shoulder bag with horsebit detail which was my first designer bag, and an oversized tan day clutch with an enamel jockey hat clasp. The BTH was considered to be too similar to the Kelly - especially since both bags were a rich chocolate brown, and I let it go at a reasonable profit (which is still less than half of current resale, but that’s an issue for another day)

But minimalism and spark joy and all of that really only works when you put in the mental work first. If you start with the idea of the lifestyle you want, and trim away the excess that’s preventing that. If you just eliminate because you have too much stuff, you end up with storage space for more stuff.

And the Kelly wasn’t a magical fairy godmother bag that transformed my whole life. It’s a travel bag - designed to hold your stuff securely while moving rather than designed to give you easy access. It’s a highly recognizable bag - and strangers around me commented on it. I thought about reselling it, but I kept remembering the bth

I started being nostalgic about the BTH. It was easy to access. It stored more than the Kelly for the same size (more of a box shape than a triangle.) No one ever commented on it when I carried it, unless I was in a tiki bar. It became the Folly of my Youth, and the bag I searched for online at midnight.

And… finally, I broke down and bought it back in black with a red lining.

And it’s difficult to carry? And I stuff too much in my bags, which doesn’t work with a rigid top handle.

After a decade and a half of self doubt, I own my old friend. And I have to accept the fact that it’s an occasional bag for me, rather than a daily. And I am drawn to slouchy satchels and Hobo bags, and I have a 70s Jackie-Kennedy in NYC aesthetic. And that 30-35 bags is my sweet spot for a collection size.

Wonderful insight well stated. I’ve just broken through another layer of my irrational “shoulds” and breathe so much easier with my collection. And, like you, I just don’t want to be tied to or burdened by “stuff”.

You've gone through so much with bags and 'baggage'. It's only through knowing ourselves and what we value we start to make the better choices. You sound like you hit your stride.

I totally agree that people don't value things like they used to. Just looking at the difference of how people looked after a bag in the pristine 1960s V some early new bag bought for thousands but squashed, dry, dented, pen-marked and dirty Funny thing was when my father used to clean and polish his Gucci shoes, belt, briefcase regularly on the kitchen table. Newspaper under paper tablecloth to save the table, only one colour leather done at a time, mostly brushing and polishing. I never saw him use commercial cleaners. He was a master craftsman himself, so I guess, it was do it properly or not at all. He wore one Gucci belt every day 1987 to '00s and I only changed the well loved (but still supple) strap 2009. Using and valuing are missing from the whole collecting and keeping.

Our new approach to consumerism is unequivocally unhealthy. It’s just incredibly hard to see clearly to sanity in a world built to keep us frenzied and in want.

In my journey to brain healing and health, I’ve gotten very focused on slowing myself - both for the baseline (but incredibly valuable) activity of meditation but also to be able to properly observe and inspect my motivations, actions and outcomes. One lesson I have been focusing on is taking time to truly savor an item or an experience. I realized I had a top level appreciation for many things but rarely took the time and space to relish in them. Making this one change has been transformational in giving me greater peace, joy, gratitude and surprisingly even patience. Your father seemed to deeply understand the joy of relishing and preserving what one has. I admire that.

De-lurking to say that I assumed that was DH, and that while your boots are pretty cool, his shoes are FAB!!!!...back to my chair in the back row . Hoping he's doing well and will be by your side soon

No! Wait! Come back! Stay de-lurked. We’d love to talk with you more.

 

[880]

bought it back in black

I also bought a BTH once. I had always wanted one, along with a velvet Roberta Di Camarino

I rehomed it bc I never wore it. And have been looking for the perfect second BTH ever since.

ETA: I never got a RdC.

 

[Sparkletastic]

@papertiger This is my necklace that reminds me of the fun bracelet you’re considering. I wear it with simple lacy gold huggy earrings and gold bangle and/or gold “mesh” diamond bracelet.
And this the the tri color necklace that I struggle with wearing. (The more I talk about this, the more cuckoo I feel because I suddenly can see a myriad of ways I could have worn it.) My pendant seems to be a little larger than the Cartier which may give it a bit more of a casual feel and it only has 3 rings vs the Cartier’s 5. I placed my new Tiffany RG Lock necklace (medium) next to it for size comparison.

I think the Cartier will work well for you as it has that pretty gold chain we discussed. That plus the warmth of the doubled RG & YG will help the piece come across as more warm toned which will be quite flattering against your skin tone.

Maybe you should get the bag and let everyone in your friends & family circle know that you expect the necklace to show up as well.

 

[More bags]

@papertiger This is my necklace that reminds me of the fun bracelet you’re considering. I wear it with simple lacy gold huggy earrings and gold bangle and/or gold “mesh” diamond bracelet. View attachment 5987854
And this the the tri color necklace that I struggle with wearing. (The more I talk about this, the more cuckoo I feel because I suddenly can see a myriad of ways I could have worn it.) My pendant seems to be a little larger than the Cartier which may give it a bit more of a casual feel and it only has 3 rings vs the Cartier’s 5. I placed my new Tiffany RG Lock necklace (medium) next to it for size comparison.
View attachment 5987855View attachment 5987856
I think the Cartier will work well for you as it has that pretty gold chain we discussed. That plus the warmth of the doubled RG & YG will help the piece come across as more warm toned which will be quite flattering against your skin tone.

Maybe you should get the bag and let everyone in your friends & family circle know that you expect the necklace to show up as well.

Gorgeous necklaces Sparkle!