<p>Very interesting list. Clearly I’ll be staying in the lower buckets. :)</p>
<p>I don’t like too much changing out of purses. I usually use one for fall/winter and one for spring/summer. I’m not fancy and have no need for anything showy - it’s just my lifestyle! You will find me sporting a Baggalini crossbody or something similar. Most of my purses would be in the “minus” numbers of the bucket list. :)</p>
<p>My son’s girlfriend is 22. They both make decent salaries, but both still live at home with plans to move out in 2015… She asked for a particular Michael Kors bag for Christmas. I hadn’t thought of her as particularly designer conscious, but I guess she is to some degree. Most of his girlfriends have like the designer bags, which leads me to believe that many girls in their 20s have knowledge of designer bags (but maybe not of the upper tiers, as when would they ever see them unless they run in elite circles?)</p>
<p>I got my Burberry on a great sale, 3 years ago. It looks great; all leather hobo, looking used but soft. You wouldn’t know it is a BB unless you saw the lining. They fixed the zipper once for free. I’m in the camp of rarely changing bags, tho use a small one for evenings out, and not advertising a make. Still, I do walk by the bags in NM-- you practically have to pass jewelry and bags to get to the elevator!</p>
<p>Pierre Deux–sure I remember being in their fabric store.</p>
<p>You don’t have to “run in elite circles” - you could walk through any Nordstrom or open any fashion magazine (if you are so inclined). And plenty of people in “elite circles” may not care, or carry a modest / functional handbag. </p>
<p>My college freshman D would recognize many designer hand bags including Kate Spade (she has 2), Coach, MK, Prada, Gucci, Chanel (the bag I’m pining for), LV, etc. She probably wouldn’t know a Birkin, but I could be wrong. She prefers bags without overly conspicuous labels/tags (hates the logo bags). D isn’t a fan of VB purses, but she likes her VB luggage/totes. She wouldn’t buy a fake just to sport a label. She’d rather save up for the real thing. </p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom - My mom is a Coach purist too. </p>
<p>I change my purses by season and sometimes in between. I love purses. I lean towards Dooney- it just seems to appeal to me. My most expensive purse dates back to 2003 and is a Tod’s and I still carry it for a month or more a year. I used to love Coach, but nothing has really grabbed me in the last 5 years or so.<br>
I have gotten a number of Vera Bradley purses and wallets over the years, but cooled off when my sister’s 92 year old mother in law was excited that she and I had the same bag! Vera is odd- I go into the store and love the prints and styles, then get them home and they seem sort of dowdy. I love my big Vera carryall for travel. The fabric makes it light and it holds a ton, including all my electronics- I carry it on. </p>
<p>I am aware of the designer names- not so much the real upper end, but the upscale “mass” names for sure. So is my daughter and she doesn’t buy them. Michael Kors is the new “in” designer and the items seem like good quality. </p>
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<p>I carried Coach bags for at least 20 years, and one of the things I liked about them–in addition to the wonderful leather and simple, classic lines–was that they did NOT have a label, except inside. </p>
<p>I haven’t been inside a Coach store for 15 years, but I gather from walking by them that things have changed. I see a lot of color. Do they now have obnoxious labels, too? How unfortunate.</p>
<p>I agree with your D. I hate visible labels.</p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom, Like your mother, I have had nothing but Coach and Dooney& Bourke since 1970! 
My parents–not far from you in CT–bought them for me. </p>
<p>20-30 yr old females I know like Marc by Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Michael Kors. Those are what I can think of off the top of my head. Both my girls like Longchamps nylon totes.
I don’t go super high end but do have bags by Coach, Cole Haan, some smaller designers and my latest purchase this past summer on sale is a Frye bag. My less expensive bags are by Fossil. I think Fossil makes some really nice looking bags at a decent price point and can be found on sale.
Like so many things in life my high end is another persons cheap. If you carry Prada, Frye is cheap. If you buy a 9 West bag at Ross my Frye is expensive. </p>
<p>Many years ago I had a couple of Dooney’s. Do they still refurbish them for free? </p>
<p>My daughter can tell. She owns a couple bought on sale, too (Kate Spade). She also says that she is pretty sure that a lot of SEC school students would know, too, it isn’t just a private college thing. :)</p>
<p>I use one bag all the time. Since all of them have been old-style Coach or D&B, they wear like iron. I have old Coach/D&B bags I could easily start using again…</p>
<p>I never thought of Vera Bradley as “designer” or as fashionable. I thought of it as something an older lady might like…much older. 
Actually, I don’t think of Coach or D&B as “designer” either. Just attractive and well-made.</p>
<p>Circa 1979, Bottega Veneto had an envelope-style bag I lusted after in I Magnin in Chicago. I couldn’t afford it, but my sister bought it. :)</p>
<p>Consolation - Coach went through a C-logo-plastered everywhere phase a few years back, but they’ve mellowed and taken a lot of it back off. I bought my D a Coach Saffiano tote in blue for her summer internship. Only a very small logo and is otherwise just a nice leather tote appropriate for work or play. She has a patent leather gray Coach - again no logos except the little hang tag - that she’s carried for years, and just looks like a gray bag. </p>
<p>My family was in the leather goods / shoe business so I do like nice leather goods. </p>
<p>I do like the Kate Spade wallets. For summer I had one that was pink / orange. For this time of year I have a black and white patent wallet I scored at a resale shop in mint condition. I just bought my mom a Tory Burch red wallet for Xmas. </p>
<p>Kate Spade has some new totes in pink and blue. My g/f uses the small KS black cross-body for evenings. </p>
<p>D2 just bought a Dolce and Gabana bag in Berlin with her birthday money (turning 21this week). D1 would have saved that money for fun travel with her SO. To each her own. </p>
<p>We arrived in Munich this afternoon and I just walked through a very bustling designer bag store area. Lots of women are very into purses.</p>
<p>When I entered the workforce in the mid-eighties, a Coach bag was what every young working professional got when she got her first promotion – it was a sign that she had “made it.” I had a navy blue Coach Station bag that I loved and wore like iron, and got a Coach briefcase for a big promotion. Those classic styles were really nice.</p>
<p>I typically don’t care for the Louis Vuitton brown and gold monogram (just not my personal taste), but this is a nice bag, and I like the LV Alma Vernis bags in general: <a href=“http://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/alma-pm-epi-000513”>http://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/alma-pm-epi-000513</a></p>
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How expensive is a bag like this?
If many women are into purse or bag, their SO may have the need to buy one for her sooner or later, I would guess. Maybe not a “several thousands dollars” one, but at least one which costs several hundreds dollars?</p>
<p>Many young ladies do know their purses. </p>
<p>I have bought more expensive bags for myself in recent years (most expensive was the ‘everyday’ bag I used for a long time from Brighton) than DD1 or DD2. DD2’s latest ‘crush’ is Kate Spade. She recently bought one 30% end of year sale, paid $153. She also picked out a purse at Dillard’s with me for her C-mas gift (was on sale plus I got extra 10% off) - nice deal (also free gift wrap - I get 6 gift wraps a year free) - would mention the brand but it is gift wrapped…also got another black bag for myself. I switch off black bags - one I particularly like is an Antonio Melani I bought last year on sale (and with my extra 10% Dillard rewards) - it’s handle is long enough to sling over shoulder but also comfortable on arm; smooth leather with one side pouch, gold trim, has enough room but you cannot over-stuff, so handy to throw stuff in.</p>
<p>I do know young ladies and their moms that spend over $300 on the young ladies’ purse, but we are more comfortable in the lesser price range.</p>
<p>DD also purchased a purse identical to friend’s at consignment store; friend paid full price. Great find!</p>
<p>Many of the young RNs I work with have their Coach bags. Sometimes it seems a rite of passage in certain circles. Other circles, like the ones my Ds travel in, not at all. They are LAC grads, and would not be caught dead with such a thing though they’d probably like North Face and Patagonia if their mother was not so cheap. </p>
<p>When touring a young Thai friend around last year, we stopped at the outlet mall and she made a beeline for the Coach store. Their designs are nice, and the pure leather bags impressed me. I do appreciate good design and quality goods, though is not my economic priority. I ended up buying a small item for my 20 something relative in Australia. She had never heard of Coach, despite living in Sydney. But her dad knew the brand. </p>
<p>Usually I buy a smaller designer item for an Asian relative as they are items of cache in her circle. In mine in the USA, not at all. We’d prefer to support local charities or spend the money on travel. </p>
<p>While in Asia recently I came to tire of the endless rows of designer stores in HK and Bangkok. Really, is this what an internationally fluid world has brought us to? Mixed appeal. </p>
<p>Don’t care for logo prints either. I like Vernis leather bags, and Alma is one of my favorites - and I have not owned a LV bag! :)</p>
<p>Re: Chanel quotas. There are quotas at the US stores now - on “classics”. Nordstrom will not ship Chanel bags to first-time customers, and many other retailers will not do it either. I could not believe there was not a single classic caviar WOC that was not “spoken for” at any Chanel seller in the US when I was ready to get one! There are secret and not so secret wait lists. I was so intrigued that I even chose to do a research project looking into how Chanel was able to keep hiking their prices despite the surge of fakes, faltering economies, etc. Some clever marketing strategies and tactics! Have you ever seen a Twitter account with more than 6M followers and not a singled followed? Yup. Devoted ambassadors on TPF? Yup. Fantastically staged preview shows with different themes (looks like the Dallas collection did not do so well, but many others did). Plus relentless policing of their trademarks, with the latest story being the battle with a hair salon owned by a lady named Chanel Jones. Ms. Jones, as expected, lost.</p>
<p>We bought a fossil (a small, “kiddy” one) for our niece a year ago, who was still in middle school.</p>