Your Pristine Hermès Bag, to Some, Looks Tacky
As a growing resale market has made the brand’s handbags available to more people, some say the image that they convey depends on their condition.
NYT article regarding resold bags
- Thread starter Madam Bijoux
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Thanks for posting this!
Just my opinion, but I think there is a bell shaped curve with respect to how your H bag can look ( and how it gets there). I'm firmly in the camp of using your bag, and allowing it to patina/ scuff/whatever along the way. I feel those bags show their lives, while still looking great.
Keeping a bag on a shelf just to admire it? Trashing a bag so it (and you) can look "cooler"? Not so much.
Just my opinion, but I think there is a bell shaped curve with respect to how your H bag can look ( and how it gets there). I'm firmly in the camp of using your bag, and allowing it to patina/ scuff/whatever along the way. I feel those bags show their lives, while still looking great.
Keeping a bag on a shelf just to admire it? Trashing a bag so it (and you) can look "cooler"? Not so much.
Yep, this
I do think brand new can look a bit gauche (Runs away quickly)
but I do like pristine RTW, even vintage (deadstock); I think it’s a nice contrast to a lived in bag
i’m sorry but this is such a silly article (and that’s no offense to OP). thank god NYT and the fashion elite can now tell me whether or not it’s “gauche” to wear a bag that looks new vs old. who cares! we as humans put ourselves through such silly hoops for social approval, and these fashion folk have ridiculous standards that are ever-changing. it’s a damn handbag. don’t overthink it.
this is the biggest “first world problem” i’ve ever heard.
this is the biggest “first world problem” i’ve ever heard.
It looks gauche when it reminds you of people that keep their yellowing, ripped plastic covers around their ten year old sofa. Just saying 
The nyt has fantastic journalism and really good op ed pieces. But at times it also has vapid, vacuous articles like this one. Disappointing.
How about different aesthetic preferences? Not a thing now?
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Wear on a bag, any bag, happens with time. What makes Jane Birkin’s Birkin or a Parisian woman’s worn Kelly appealing is not its wear, but rather the stories and events behind the wear and tear. All the stickers and decorations on Jane’s Birkin were not all added in a day, but rather added over time with thought and memories. Where and how has this Kelly been carried and used- an important celebration, traveling around the world, or filled with fruit, vegetables, and a baguette at the Sunday market? Each scratch and scrape reminds you of what the bag has gone through with you (or the previous owner). What is gauche to me is to artificially fabricate these stories in order to differentiate oneself from the others who may have a pristine newly bought Birkin, but that Birkin is authentically itself and has a life ahead of it.
At the end of the day, it really comes down to what makes an individual happy about carrying their
bag be it pristine or handed down from your grandmother, special order or purchased from H directly or
from a reseller, auction house etc.
The world of fashion & journalism has to create some "buzz" or else they wouldn't have a job
It all needs to be put in perspective.JMO
bag be it pristine or handed down from your grandmother, special order or purchased from H directly or
from a reseller, auction house etc.
The world of fashion & journalism has to create some "buzz" or else they wouldn't have a job
It all needs to be put in perspective.JMO
Search engine journalism. Every now and again, editors everywhere, just point to a journalist and demand an article with 'Hermes' and/or Birkin in the title.
I just wish they had actually written a good article about the resale market, which could have been interesting!
ITA
Like most articles on fashion and luxury from the mainstream press, the audience(s) have been deemed to be non-consumers and those that take a passing interest in fashion. Others click just in case there's something new to know. So long as these articles get the clicks they don't care, and they don't care to care.
Unless you have OCD and that's ALL YOU SEE.
I agree we should each do what we like. Some like the lived-in look, some like pristine. I like pristine (or at least reasonably-cared-for) but it also goes with my personal style.
There's a happy medium between "I bought this bag to use it, not to put it in a museum" and "This bag is trashed beyond repair and I don't care."
Oh my dog! Had not thought about those hideous yellowing plastic furniture covers from a grandmother‘s long ago habit.It looks gauche when it reminds you of people that keep their yellowing, ripped plastic covers around their ten year old sofa. Just saying
And the NYT has really really gone downhill IMHO over the last number of years, with odd opinion pieces and no mention of some major world events. They used to do lots of thoughtful pieces on all sorts of things and now we get (not me, I unsubscribed 5 years ago) odd, gobbledegook whataboutism about so many topics. It’s really too bad, I agree with @slayqueen that a very different article about resale would have been interesting. Oh well, clickbait is everywhere. and the NYT like so many journalistic outlets are floundering and laying off people, no wonder clickbait rules the day.
I wear my bags EXACTLY how I wish - no one will ever tell me what is ”fashionable” or “gauche”! Most of us here love our bags and rock them proudly however we wish, wherever we got them, how old or new they are, and as something that has meaning to us (even if that meaning is just to be “on trend”). One thing I love about tpf is there is room here for all of us and our own personal style and we often support each other, so take that NYT
But thanks to you, @madame Bijoux for starting an interesting discussion!
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