Bag Collection Update
I love many things, but a personal weakness that I will forever have has to be bags. As much as I would love a beautiful shoe closet, I’m really just not a heel girl and enjoy practical shoes (I’m looking at you flats + sneakers). As much as I do invest in good shoes, I see the wear and tear on them much quicker over time and I know shoes aren’t necessarily items that will be able to be passed on to a future generation later on. But bags? They can last a long time if you take good care of them!
It’s been a little over two years since I did my last bag collection post , so with the many requests I received over on Instagram, I thought it was about time to share some of the newer pieces I’ve added. I actually was quite well behaved with the bag adding up until very recently. (To be fair, this was drafted in December 2018 - yikes - so this is a tad outdated but better late than never.)
Back in 2017 after I wrapped up my busy work season, I decided to treat myself to my first Gucci bag and of course I decided to go with the Gucci Soho Disco bag. Around this time, it was rumored that they were discontinuing this bag which was a shock to me and I knew that I wanted one so I decided to treat myself to it. (It’s now almost 2 years later and there’s no sign of it going anywhere - whew.) It’s a bag that many people have, but I think for very good reason. Although it does have the Gucci logo quite boldly on the front, I still think it’s quite subtle. I also didn’t think I’d be as big of a fan of the massive zipper tassel but it actually adds a little pizzazz to the bag. One thing I was very surprised by when I held the bag for the first time was how spacious it was for how compact it looks. I definitely use this bag on the regular and pretty much alternate it into rotation for daily use and it has held up incredibly well. I did make a teeny scratch the first month I got it, but aside from that I don’t think I’ve made any big scratches in it and I can’t actually find that original scratch anymore.
The interior of this is a light sand-colored linen which is beautiful but can definitely show any imperfections. I *luckily* haven’t spilled anything in it (knock on wood) but I try my best not to throw anything in that could potentially leak/open. I keep any lip products / fragrances in a tiny zippered pouch which also makes it easy to throw into different bags when I’m changing them. (My little pouch is from one of the nesting cosmetic bags from Furla that I got a few years ago in Italy.) I also keep my AirPods in the pouch so that I don’t accidentally forget them - because we all know that a day at work without headphones is the worst ever.
The Soho Disco bag has also slowly made its way as my designated travel bag as I like that it’s quite secure. The straps are attached to the bag so I know that somebody can’t unclip the straps on a crowded subway/train. It also has a zipper which helps to deter hot handed pickpocketers. Probably my favorite thing about the bag is that it’s a rectangle shaped bag with a squared off bottom which means my Sony a6000 camera fits quite snugly into the bag without distorting the shape or making it oddly bulky. I can still keep my card wallet, lip product bag, and a small hand cream / hand sanitizer in my bag as well without it feeling crammed.
The next bag I picked up after that was my beautiful Proenza PS1 Tiny in Saddle in the summer of 2017. This was basically my dream bag (in Tiny form, originally I had wanted the Medium), so when I came across this at 50% off on the Proenza website, I snagged that baby up without hesitation. And it was right before my birthday so treat yo’self, amiright? I was SO happy to find this as Proenza’s PS1 line was changing around this time and tbh I am not a fan of what the bag looks like now. The bags now have a lot more heavy handed stitching, the leather is a thicker more sturdy material and doesn’t give that lived-in, buttery soft leathery look and feel that we all love about the PS1s. They do still carry a few limited shades in the original leather, but I haven’t really done toooo much research into it lately. This is one of my other heavily rotated bags and only the other day did I notice that it has some wear around the piping on the back side. For the amount that I wear this and shove into it, this bag has held up quite well. I remember a blogger mentioning a few years back that Proenza leather ages like fine wine, and I could not agree more. This baby is over a year and a half old now and is looking better than ever.
Following my two purchases in 2017, I went over a year without buying a new bag which I was actually quite relieved about. I had already felt like I picked up way more bags that I anticipated between 2016-2017 and needed to take a break. But a few months back, one of my dream brands hit a (not so) little detour. Céline’s creative director of the last decade (and basically the only Céline I’ve known), Phoebe Philo, stepped down. In her place was to come in Hedi Slimane, who is not a newcomer to the high world of fashion, as he was previously the creative director for YSL (Or Saint Laurent Paris, as he’d like to call it lol). Similar with YSL, one of his first calls to action with Céline was to change the “name”, and in this case it was to remove the accent from the ‘é’ and just call it Celine. I wouldn’t say that I dislike YSL’s pieces, but in general they are a bit more edgier and “in your face” than I prefer. I do have one YSL piece, which is the YSL card wallet - but that’s about as far as I’d go. (And for a while, I’ve been wanting to replace it with a Chanel card wallet so there’s that.) Anywho, everyone was speculating what his new designs would be like and whether or not any of the classic Phoebe-Céline pieces we all know and love would be safe in this new “reign” of design. For shits and giggles, you can head over to an IG page that tributes Phoebe Philo’s version of Céline, aka OLD CÉLINE.
So once Hedi’s line launched, I pretty much scrambled (with a good percentage of the world’s population) to pick up something on my Céline wish list. I had added in the Céline Trio to my collection during my trip to Paris back in 2015, which I also featured in my last bag collection post and this little post here. One bag I told T that I was going to pick up the next time we were in Paris was a Celine Box Bag and I meant it. But when all this Hedi drama came out, I panicked and worried that it would no longer be there the next time I traveled there. Well the stars aligned because T’s sister was traveling to Korea and when she asked if I wanted anything, T jumped in and said (half jokingly) “the bag that you’ve been obsessively talking about for the last week.” I quickly dismissed it because I wasn’t ready to drop $$$ on a new bag. But for the few days that T’s sister was traveling, I pondered and kept browsing sites. When she was leaving, she snapped me a photo of the Céline store in duty-free and asked if I was sure I didn’t want it. I asked her to go in and see if they even had the bag, and if so what the price was. They did have a few box bags left, two blacks (one on display and one new in box) and one brown. By this time we were face-timing and the brown looked a bit strange on camera and since I had never seen the brown one in real life, I just decided to go with a safe option and choose black. The sales associate had commented that women were steadily coming in since the Hedi announcement and snagging up majority of the stock. I caved, I bought it, and this little beauty is now mine. For a while I debated between a small and a medium, but in the end decided with a medium because of the versatility in use. I had watched numerous review videos and most people confirmed that the classic box in small was quite small and barely held the essentials. Most reviews commented that the small was good for special occasions and since I figured I’d likely wear a different bag for special occasions (Chanel WOC if you were wondering), I’d just get the medium since I wouldn’t mind wearing it more on the regular. I’ve used it a handful of times but I’m still in babying mode. I’m sure I’ll be swapping it in and out of my collection more regularly, but I’m excited to have it finally be mine!
The latest addition to my collection - was - the Chloe Faye Backpack (mini). This was one that had been on my list for a few years now and one I wasn’t sure fit my style. I was shopping with my mom during a Nordstrom sale and had showed her the bag that I looked at every time I was in store. She generously bought it for me and I’ve been oogling at it ever since. It’s definitely a pinch me moment that I have added this bag as well. However I started having a bit of buyer’s remorse and had yet to utilize it. As much as I love the backpack style, I really am a crossbody bag type girl (as you can probably see). Another Chloe bag that I had my eye on was the Tess bag and I decided to trade my Faye backpack in for the Tess. I had seen that the Tess bag was available at my local Nordstrom and I *finally* went to go exchange it and of course it was already sold. Typical. The sales associates were kind enough to help exchange the bag for me (without losing valuable Nordstrom points lol) and ya girl got her Tess bag!!! I do have a very teeny sense of remorse of not waiting to see if the olive green would come in stock, but I love a good natural color.