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Splurgy Poo

New Year, New Bag: The First Contenders

The single worst thing about attending Northwestern University is epitomized by the following sentence: “Northwestern…that’s outside of Boston, right?” Wrong! I did not bust my ass at a top ten university so that your little pea brain could confuse it with a third tier school.

In the world of Cheap JAP, a Northeastern is obvs the fake handbag version of a Northwestern. You might think we don’t need to concern ourselves with this travesty, as we’re not in the market for fake bags and willing to splurge on the real deal. Again, wrong! We don’t just need to find a fab, overpriced, coveted bag here, people. We need to make sure that our bag cannot be faked adequately, because we don’t want anyone whispering to us in conspiring fashion, “Did you score that down on Canal or in Soho?”

This brings us to the quality our eventual purchase must have in spades.

Utterly Unfakeable
I’m usually against famous peeps using their celebrity to break into fashion because most of them can’t even dress themselves. Gwen Stefani is a different story; her style rocks as hard as she does, and she had the good sense to collaborate with Tim Schifter on the design for L.A.M.B.’s handbag line.

I’d have to see, hold and drool on these bags in person to fully assess their seeming unfakeability. But based on the ShopBop close-ups of the Signature Oxford Tote and of the Glazed Love Verona Bowler (respectively), both bags have qualities that make them totally unfakeable. The classic tote shape is tougher to knock off than less structured options; also, each bag exhibits small things (the magnetic tab detail and subtle print on the Oxford, the padlock and tassel detail on the Verona) that make faking it more trouble than it’s worth.

The prices on these bags, particularly the second one, are too nauseating for me to type at this moment. Thankfully, New Year New Bag is about the journey, not the destination.