handbags

Louis Vuitton "Core Values" Handbags Fall-Winter 2008 . 2009 : Laetitia Casta by Annie Leibovitz

There used to be a time when spending $4,000 on an Hermes Birkin bag, that holy grail of handbags, was outrageous. And Birkin bags have certainly always been the most expensive, running all the way into the 100,000s. But Japanese designer GinzaTanaka just released this diamond-studded bag that is valued at a whopping $1.63 million. The platinum handbag is studded with 2,182 diamonds totaling 208 carats and valued at 200 million Japanese yen, or $1.63 million USD.

The fabulous Givenchy Nightingale bag has been spotted on the arm of countless starlets -- Sienna Miller, Reese Witherspoon, Ashley Olsen, Victoria Traina -- it is definitely one of this season's It bags:

And they keep getting younger! Sixteen year old Emma Roberts, who recently starred in the Nancy Drew film, is joining the ranks of Mischa Barton and Lindsay Lohan and becoming the new face of Dooney & Bourke, and just launched her new ad campaign. She is officially the face of the brand's spring teen collection.

But, she is going one step further than her predecessors -- she is even getting a bag named after her. The "Emma" bag comes in two sizes in eleven great colors. The Small Emma bag is $210 and the Medium Emma Bag is $235, both available online at dooney.com, reports People.

Source: PEOPLE magazine.

In a piece in today's New York Times, editorial writer Carolyn Curiel discusses the pros and cons of fake handbags. Are they worth it? Are they a major no-no? According to Curiel, they will never go away-- not with our "appetites for luxury on a budget."

Curiel writes about a woman she knows who has a massive collection of knockoff bags: "Costing about $35 each, they confer on this young woman — and legions like her — the experience of the wealthy, including the envious looks of passersby who don’t have the knowledge to spot the fakes from the real."

Undoubtedly, this is true. Nowadays, everyone wants high fashion. Everyone wants a perfectly quilted Chanel tote or a YSL Muse or a Fendi Spy. But not many of us have the incomes or the budgets to support such extravagant purchases, so we continually turn to wallet-friendly fakes. But to some, these are a major fashion faux pas and are just tacky compared to the real thing. Faking like you're wealthy and have it all is not the same as the real thing. What do you think-- yea or nay for knockoff bags?

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