Friday, March 13, 2009

My Evil Vera Tote

Fashion designer Vera Wang doesn't know it, but I own one of her T-shirts. No, I didn't steal it, it was a gift from a much more fashionable friend. It's also my favorite T-shirt and I've just about worn it into rag-status, because 1) it's violet and I'm still going through a violet phase from last year and 2) it's sinfully comfortable. It's the only article of clothing I own that can rightfully be called designer or fashion.

Since receiving the T-shirt I've been avoiding Kohl's, the only place in town that sells Vera Wang on the rack stuff. I don't want any more of her T-shirts. They scare me. Vera scares me. But I wanted to get a nice tote for our first giveaway winner at my group blog, and so like an idiot I went to Kohl's. That was when I saw the most sinfully lovely and utterly evil tote bag I have ever beheld:



It's black. It's shiny. It has this snake-like golden-green-bronze glow. It has not one but two zippered pockets on the inside. And perfect zippers. And perfect handles. And it's the perfect size for all the stuff I lug to the library . . .

I resisted for exactly a week, until I went back to drool on it one more time and saw that the evil lovely thing was marked down 40%. And there were only two left on the shelf. Now I can resist full-price Vera, but discount Vera? Only two left Vera? Don't get between me and the nearest cashier.

The bag is sitting in my office now, glaring at me. Daring me to use it. But it's also shiny and perfect, not a scratch on it, and I just want to look at it for a while before I begin the process of destroying it like every other tote bag that has had the misfortune to fall into my careless hands.

Or maybe I'll just keep looking at it like the spellbound fashion-helpless mouse that I am, and snarl at anyone who tries to touch it. The weird thing is, now I finally understand why some women have to have those $600.00 stupid-looking designer shoes. That's their evil Vera Wang tote bag.

What's yours?

33 comments:

  1. Prettyyyyy

    Luckily i am not there yet cos I could never spend big money on something, but I do spend a little money on things I find on sales...which amounts to big money lol

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  2. The bag does nothing for me, but I covet the piecrust table on which it sits...

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  3. Anonymous7:35 AM

    Probably electronics. Especially my beautiful camera - a Nikon D40, digital SLR. I lusted after it for years, the price came down and I finally had an excuse. We went to Alaska on a cruise.

    It's an inanimate object, but I love my camera. And most other electronics.

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  4. I fell victim to this gorgeous Liz Claiborne flowered quilt set. The pillow shams alone were nuts. I walked away. I kept thinking about it. Looking at it online. There was nothing wrong with the bed set we had, except that it was pale green and I don't like pale green. Gorgeous Liz was on sale, and I succumbed to the beauty. It's perfect in the room, unlike the pale green, and it makes me happy every day. Maybe beauty *is* it's own reason for being.

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  5. High quality bedding. I own more sheet and duvet sets than any one human being needs. A linen sale at BB&B? I'm so there! I cannot resist once I get it into my head that I need a new set of sheets. It's a sad odd little sickness, but it makes me happy.

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  6. Absolutely love the bag Lynn. For me its Dior or Thierry Mugler perfume, I can't resist. Especially when Mugler comes out with a fragrance called Alien in a orange glass bottle. I resisted all of 2 seconds.

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  7. Anonymous9:45 AM

    Eating out. I can rationalize a cheese-custard croissant like you wouldn't believe. Or a quick dinner at the pub. Or....

    However, funny you should mention the fashion thing. If you had told me this time last year that I would not only be a girly-girl, I would LIKE it, and that other women would Look at me like I am from Sex and the City, I would have laughed myself silly.

    Except, well, today I'm wearing BCBG cobalt blue flats, The Limited strapless watercolor teal print dress, a white Anne Taylor Loft wide scoop neck cardigan, a beige Gap trench coat, and of course, the emeralds my husband gave me for Christmas, while carrying a bag from The Sak. Retail value of all this? Easily $450. (My price? $45 I kid you not.)

    I don't know how it happened, but somewhere in the past year I became fashionable. I'm wearing EYELINER right now, Lynn.

    I don't recognize myself anymore. Which is kinda cool, cuz that chick in the mirror? She is hot. *G*

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  8. *holds head down in shame* I am weak, oh so very weak when it comes to designer perfumes. I love them. Give me a well-blended, well-balanced, sweet-smelling with a good fixator perfume-which is French, Italian, Brazilian or whatever you name it-I am a sucker for them. Luckily, I have a store I can buy them at wholesale prices. I go several times a year even though I still have many that I have not touched yet. I have a vanity full of perfumes plus the shopping bags I have tucked away in the back of my closet.

    It is definitely an addiction, but oh man, it is so delicious! *L*

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  9. Coach bags. I love them. Now I only buy them at the discount stores and sometime second hand stories.

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  10. Coach bags, but I refuse to actually buy them in full price Coach stores. We have a Coach outlet down in Key West. I've bought bags there on sale below their already lower outlet prices. I am also not ashamed to remind them I'm a local which earns me an extra discount.

    I also fell prey one evening to a Dooney & Burke bag on QVC. Now QVC is definitely the tool of the devil. *G*

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  11. I'm a bag lady. I drool over Dooney, Coach, and YSL, but I only purchase Vera Bradley because she offers compartments and pockets that are bountiful and user friendly.

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  12. Anonymous11:42 AM

    One word-Anuschka.

    http://www.anuschkaleather.com/

    Leather, and handpainted. I curl up and whimper every time I see a new one, because then I have to start the self control fight. I own one and it's so pretty it's almost unreal.

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  13. I've really been thinking about getting a Kindle. My husband says he'll buy it for me but I'm stalling because of the price. But I really really want one.

    I just don't get it, this bag fixation. I used to live in Brooklyn and a girl I worked with was showing off her $400 wallet that went with her $800 purse, both gifts from her fiance. The purse could have paid one month's rent for my whole-in-the-wall apartment. Maybe if I actually owned one I could figure it out.

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  14. Its going to sound strange, but corsets. I cant get enough. I love the way they fit and shape and the material is heavenly. The bad part is, they are not a day wear item...for a mother and a woman who works in a man's field. So I buy them and they hang in my closet looking beautiful.

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  15. BTW I have a corset that would look De-vine with your awesome VW tote!!!

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  16. Anonymous1:21 PM

    My flannel sheets. Practical & pretty printed with colourful autumn leaves (my favourite time of year). They keep me smiling on the coldest winter nights of which we have had too many lately.

    Hurry up Spring!

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  17. I'm a total shoe person. I've never spent $600 on a pair of shoes, but have spend $200 without blinking.

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  18. Dont understand the whole fashion thing at all. Never gripped me. When we moved last year I got invited to a handbag party by an acquaintance so I could get to know some people in the village. Was very surreal watching everyone else coo over the merchandise.
    Did do a change of image thing today though. It is Comic Relief over here so had my hair cut off and dyed red. Lovely. Now I dont know what to do with myself. Have I made a fashion statement??? So unlike me. Check out http://www.myrednoseday.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=156720&LangPref=en-CA

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  19. Anonymous4:09 PM

    I'm a bag lady, too. But it isn't about the price or the style. I have bags of varying size. Small ones for gaming dice and ones I've made with beadwork covering them. Then I have to have bags big enough to carry a small library of books every time I leave the house. And then of course there have to be some big enough to pack clothes for those weekend get aways.

    But my major shopping sprees are all about the books. Whenever I have extra money that is how I celebrate. That passion has kept me away from anything that would mean less books.

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  20. *sigh*

    Shoes. Black turtlenecks. Books. Shiny things (DH says I must have been a crow in another life.) Electronics/computer things. Books. Pens (I'm a sucker for a great pen) P Buckley Moss Geese prints. (really expensive, those) Did I mention books?

    I don't buy inexpensive anything on that list. And I'm sure there's more. I'm so bad...

    And gee, thanks, Shiloh! You really didn't have to put up that darned link, did you? ;-) Those bags are gorgeous...*wanders off to count cash*

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  21. Wow. The bag is fabulous and I have to admit to a weakness for shoes and bags in general, but lacking moola helps keep me in line :) I've been drooling over Burberry bags forever and I *love* their brit perfume, but my real weakness is for something I could never dream of affording: a beautiful Aston Martin DBS (with the transponder watch!) or that Corvette ZR1! ::sighs::

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  22. Anonymous8:32 PM

    Bags and shoes and clothes leave me cold (except for maybe the one pair of winter-wear slip-on Merrells that I own). As a homeschooling mom, though, I'm a curriculum junkie. I drool over educational resources: books, science kits, math manipulatives, more books and still more books. The Rainbow Resource Center catalogue is a great danger to my wallet.

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  23. DragonBall Z. It's my willpower kryptonite. I want to collect the whole series so bad I can almost taste it, but I simply can't afford it.

    For a while there, I'd pick up any used video I could find, DVD or VHS, cut or uncut. Unfortunately, there's a very limited market around here for used DBZ stuff, so if I want the rest, I'mma just have to buy it new. So I haven't.

    But I waaaaaannnnnt it!

    I'm also a paper klepto. I love paper. The weight of it. The texture of it. Different types -- typing paper and manilla paper, newsprint and card stock, book paper and linen paper and personal stationary paper and construction paper.

    I hope to God no one ever drops a match in my house because my paper collection would go up like a nuclear power plant.

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  24. Anonymous10:32 PM

    Mmm, hardcover editions! So my tbr pile is enormous and I won't read it 'til the paperback comes out anyway. Sure, it's a hardcover re-release & Or I already own the paperback Sure it's just a book club edition, but, but, but - it's the FIRST HARDCOVER of Night Lost (or Dead Until Dark, or Brothers In Arms, or...) So I must take it home and carefully place it in its correct clear Show-offs book box, (stacked 7 high in rows 3 deep, alphabetical by author)and then ignore it in favor of the paperback when I re-read it next. But when middle age finally catches up with my eyes, I'm sittin' on a gold mine! Or I'll just buy them all again in Kindle or e-Reader format.

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  25. I have to resist most things so I can buy books. So I guess it's books! lol

    (although I love my spyglass, and my compass....)

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  26. Juicy Couture has a bad reputation for making some of the tackiest stuff known to high-end retail, but I am such a sucker for that once-in-awhile-deliciousness of theirs that I go to the Land of Terry Tracksuits and drop $250 on the one beautiful think living there.

    And I wear their perfume. I'm weak.

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  27. Do people realize they are paying hundreds of dollars to wear or carry around something with someone else's tacky initials or logo and are giving them free advertising???

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  28. Sommermann blouses. I have enough blouses to last the rest of my life, but when I see another cool colour or charming design, I'm so lost.

    I'm pretty bad when it comes to shoes, too. Oh, and Hermes shawls.

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  29. Haha. If there's a good deal and I like it, well, my rationale is buy it now cause the chance won't be there later ;)

    I'm a sucker for books and cheesy movies.

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  30. I don't like shopping and don't have much cash for non-essentials (what I have goes to computers), but I fear the day when I see one of the amplified acoustic guitars that look like cellos on a decent sale. Those things (at least a decent one) cost more than a desktop computer, but OOOH I want one :).

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  31. Anonymous7:20 PM

    Books. Definitely books. I can't walk past a bookstore without popping in to browse the shelves. Amazon.com is actually Satan. Well, okay, maybe Satan's helper. I'll buy books on all kinds of topics, simply because I think it might be interesting to know about the lichen that grow in barren climates...AHHHH!

    books. I carry them everywhere.

    Raven

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  32. When I stayed in Madrid, our hotel window overlooked the Prada shop. They had a bag in the window and I saw it every morning. So instead of buying tacky souvenirs, I bought that bag. I never regretted it. it lasted for years.

    Recently I went shopping for a bag for my new netbook. I'm on my third one now, and so far this one is sticking. The first was a netbook case which was boring, the second was a Paloma Picasso handbag which just happened to work, and the third is a Thinkpad case which is working well.

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  33. kids always come first here. so i rarely get anything nice, lol
    my ONE thing was getting my nails done, cause im a biter so keeping on those arycilic, (have no clue how to spell, which is weird)
    was my only splurge but i dont even do that anymore

    like i told my mom, i dont "feel" female , im just mom or granny

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