WHAT IS UP with current handbag trends and why are people spending on them the cost of surgery or a year's food and medicine for children in countries plagued by war and famine?

Not that I'm against spending copious amounts of money on bags if you have more than enough moolah to go around. But who died and said you had to listen to the marketeers and brand gurus about what's good lookin and what isn't? I mean... if some kid without a label designed the fendi spybag, would you pay as much? ah HAH! Its the branding and marketeering at work!

I mean. seriously. a handbag defined by merriam webster online says its a bag held in the hand or hung from a shoulder strap and used for carrying small personal articles and money. Ya we all know that. But it doesn't say that you have to spend anywhere from $300 (wow! what a steal!) to $14,000 and up for it. But look at what chicks with less than Paris Hilton's expense account are carrying and striving to carry! Seeing the branded bags that women are toting around and getting all in a tizzy over, I'm inclined to think that the world's gone mad.

Especially also because since the beginning of the millenium, bags have just gone UGLY.

Is UGLY the new BEAUTIFUL?

I chalked the thousands-of-dollars Fendi spybag trend to the 9/11 episode, which has all these secret compartments and what not, to carry all covert forms of cosmetics and lethal concoctions of eau de parfum to be used against dangerous fashion terroristas, and perhaps that odd bottle of mace in case someone tried to run off with the bag that costs more than its contents.

Engineering genius? perhaps. And I've always been a fan of Fendi. But look at the bag and tell me it doesn't remind you of a nightmare you had as a child. Or of wrinkly testicles... in an array of colours that resemble diarrhetic brown and shades of vomit green. I mean... SERIOUSLY.











(But having said that, the Fendi mink spy bag is gorgeous, esp since it doesn't look like the handles have thorny whiskers and the body has creepy ringworm markings, so it doesn't really count in the ugly line-up. Still, at $9,500?)

And then a friend mentioned the Chloe Paddington bag (is that, like, one bag or all her bags?), which i'm told "everybody is carrying". And then another friend chimed in on its absolute fabulousness (is that even a word?) and another said its a "must have" and I'm thinking... maybe this handbag designer is worth checking out. After all, a must-have is a must-have, right?













(black croc skin number is US$13,000, according to one website.)

I confess, i like these better than the spybag (excluding the mink), even if its still too busy for my tastes. But the padlock? Ok. maybe I'm not so informed about this designer, or schooled in the subtleties of name-association and branding, but I'm a sucker for nitpicking the obvious and I couldn't help but wonder if the PADlock is supposed to be a play on the designer's name PADdington, which would be somewhat tragic for the lack of subtlety. Regardless, it is a NICE padlock, even though the practicality of it is questionable. Does it work or is it purely for ornamental purposes? or deterrence? And if it does serve some security purpose, why break the padlock when u can cut through the base? Because you'd destroy the bag and devalue it? Urm, ok. So people would steal the bag for the bag and not the contents? AHHHHH.

That's why some people call it "investment." I remember when I was packing up to move from Asia to the States, the moving company had advised us to itemise any branded bags under the category of "prized possessions". That's what bags are today and that's why people spend this kind of money on them. Its art. Art that you carry around and worry about whether you've spilled that drop of wine on or if your makeup leaked onto the monogrammed interior. Art that you can appreciate not because people will stop and gawk at it, impressed at your choice of accessory and representation of your lifestyle, but because you know its a personal and private reflection of your finer tastes. *cough*

And unless, again, you've got more than enough cash to spend guiltlessly, I suppose that thinking of it as art and investment diminishes the guilt of spending $10k on a bag. And you don't have to worry about waking up one day and finding out that, horror of horrors, your multi-thousand-dollar bag is so hideous it frightens your child, and the brand and bragging rights can no longer make up for it. Because art doesn't always have to be beautiful. Much of it is ugly and raw and sensationally grotesque. Like Damian Hurst's.

The hopeful side of me, however, is contemplating the possibility that people are starting to see the merits of paying good money for function over form, seeing how Fugly (fucking-ugly, for the less informed) is the new Rage, and that these bags do seem to serve more than the simple function of carrying the odd wallet or random cellphone or occasional loose change. Who knows what's next? We've already got the spybag. How about the SWATbag? or the AMDbag? Bring it on, I say. Before you know it, luxury handbags will be able to stop the world's evil, leap buildings in a single bound, and defuse nuclear bombs without the risk of chipping a nail.

Maybe ladies are getting smarter, learning to spend their expendable cash on something that boasts efficiency over aesthetics. Dare I hope its a reflection of today's climate of practicality and common sense as women drive the evolution of retail therapy forward in a direction that would fascilitate the betterment of the global community. Dare I hope that fashion and common sense are finally, and definitively, one. Dare I hope its one small step for the fashion world, and one big leap for shoppers everywhere.

Dare I hope I'm not smoking too much crack.