Ugly patchwork purse says you have much cheddah

Ever-charming Manolo the Shoeblogger (who refers to himself in the third person because he's earned it, people!) tells Boing Boing,

Here is the story that has been hot among the purse blogger for the past several months but has just broken through to the general public, the story of the limited edition, patchword, $52,500 Louis Vuitton purse, constructed out of the chopped parts of 14 older Louis Vuitton purses.

It is ugly and ridiculous and grotesquely overpriced, and the Manolo has said so at his blog.

Here is the Washington Post story on the purse.

Only five are being sold in the US, one of which has already gone to Beyonce.

[Ed. note: Me, I'd call her "*The* Beyonce," but who am I to judge.]

• [gypsycate]

  something tells me Beyonce won’t be paying $52K for hers, even though she could well afford to.

  And damn, it IS an ugly thing.

• [Antinous]

  Oh please, oh please! Let one of the anonymous buyers donate it to the Museum of Hoaxes.

• [emilydickinsonridesabmx]

  #1: You’re right on, but it’s actually much, much sadder than that. My office window is directly across the street from the Louis Vuitton store in Manhattan, so I basically am forced to spend half my day watching what goes on in there. I don’t begrudge people having nice things. I like nice clothes myself. It’s one thing for some uber wealthy person to buy really expensive items, but what’s really sad is I see people who are totally broke walking into Louis Vuitton and dropping money on things they can’t afford, just to appear wealthy. To me that is much,much sadder because it shows how completely shallow and money driven our society is. Even worse, I see at at least 2-3 people per week getting pulled out of Louis in handcuffs for shoplifting. A few weeks ago, one of them was a Mother with her three kids with her. That one really bummed me out. Compound this with the fact that Canal Street is only a few blocks away, where they sell fake LV’s every 10 feet, so then you have another group of people pretending to be wealthy by buying the fakes. It’s a Sick Sad World, Daria! Seriously, some days I wish a sinkhole would swallow SoHo, along with LV,, Coach,Longchamp and all the rest and deposit them in the bowels of the earth.

• [Candy]

  Looks like a mobile tribute to static cling.

• [the.Mediatrix]

  It’s true the bag isn’t much to look at, and it’s easy to loathe folks who can’t get enough designer bling in their lives.

  But I have to point out that some folks collect fashion and couture items the way others collect vintage cars or old coins.

  The patchwork bag was designed by Marc Jacobs and represents LV’s history as a luggage and bag maker. It also incorporates pieces from 14 other LV bags. To a collector, there is a larger appreciation at work here, unmentioned in the WP’s easy-way-out story about keeping ahead of the other multi-millionaire Joneses.

  The fashion houses, including LV, have recently made it a point to produce lower-line items that will appeal to middle class customers and whet their appetite for luxury, while also creating the ultra-expensive and limited-edition items at the other end. That’s why not all the Chanel sunglasses on the heads of entry-level worker bees are fake.

  What you used to get from high-end designers was quality, but today many bling-happy shoppers at the low end care more about the brand and creating an illusion of wealth.

  And that’s where things get disturbing. Since the counterfeit items at the low-low end are exclusively about money, gangs, labor violations, smuggling, and other seedy influences come into play. And the fakes are getting better and better.

  Here’s a great Talk of the Nation episode about it featuring the author of “Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster.”
  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14185246

• [Jamie Sue]

  Far be it from me to decide how people spend thier hard earned cash… but there has to be a special place in Hell for people who drop almost 53K on a hideous patchwork purse. How more concieted can an individual be? I makes me ill to think that though these people have the resources to make positive changes in the world they would rather buy a 53K purse than vaccinate children, feed the homeless, or make sure that women have good prenatal care. That kind of materialism is un-excusable. If tommorow I hear on the news that a vain, self-important, elitist died as a result of having an ugly patchwork purse shoved into her diamond studded rectum… I don’t think I’ll shed a tear.

• [gia]

  … then again, I have NEVER seen any bag by Louis Vuitton that wouldn’t have been ugly. Brown, grandma style for women who want to spend $1K+ on a handbag.