Especially for me

Today, buying a luxury brand handbag is an exercise in banality: you walk into the well-appointed store past the chic-suited security guards, peruse what's on display, choose, pay, and walk out with your purchase. The shopping experience may have been pleasant, but in the end it was no different from going to the Gap, except for the price.
Buying an Hermès handbag...is still a true experience in luxury. Hermès boutiques do receive a few bags each season to sell to customers who walk in--a bit like a good restaurant always saving a table for a regular who drops in without a reservation. But generally, if you want to buy an Hermès bag, you have to order it. The bags on display in the store are just that: display models to show you the options. You choose the material: cowhide, reptile, ostrich or even canvas. You choose the color and the kind of hardware: silver, gold, diamond-encrusted... And then you wait several months while it is made to your specifications. When it arrives in the shop and you are invited to come pick it up, it is your bag. Another woman may have a navy blue cowhide Kelly with gold hardware and turned-in seams, but that was her idea, just as yours was yours.

- Dana Thomas, How Luxury Lost Its Luster

I've waited a little more than a year for this bag and now its mine. There is a story behind the acquisition of this bag, but it's at The Purse Forum. Unless you are a member of that forum, you won't see the pictures.

So here are the pictures of my new bag, after the jump.

My bag is a 40 cm, Haut à Courroies (HAC), in prussian blue Epsom leather with palladium hardware.

It is too late to edit what I wrote in that forum, but I am glad my bag turned out the way it is. The comments are almost unanimous in saying that I am better off with tone-on-tone stitching instead of white stitching.

And just because it's not a horseshoe stamp, it doesn't mean it's not a special order. Someone from the forum remarked that my bag being in epsom leather and in a limited color, makes it a special order. Horseshoe stamps are just for bags which deviate from the usual, say, a different stitching or a different colored lining.

In any case, it's humbling to know that a single craftsperson spent about 20-30 hours making my bag entirely by hand. I feel special.

Watch this:



Thank you, Lord! I feel so blessed