7.6.11

"If you throw money out of the window throw it out with joy. Don’t say 'one shouldn’t do that' - that is bourgeois" - Karl Lagerfeld.

aka the Biba purse post! (This post is wordy, and fashion-y. Just a little warning, I won't be offended if you don't read it!) 


My recently emptied and curtly trimmed wardrobe is built of understandably modest labels - H&M and New Look mainly - I don't own anything designer (not through choice you understand but through lack of funds!) And when you can get designer inspired high street clothes for reasonable prices, why would you? The most expensive things I own are rings, one of which I got for my eighteenth and the other two are heirlooms - generally I love lovely things and although I have been known to splurge at topshop I'm hardly the last of the big spenders. 

But for so long, ever since I saw this little beauty, I knew it might well be my first extravagant and entirely unnecessary luxury purchase. After some umming and aching, I saved my pennies up for it harder than I ever have before, kicked off by birthday money and then forcing myself to put pound coins into the silver teddy bear money box from my grandmas house instead of buying snacks or other useless little things I spend my change on. 




Besides the odd time I had to dip in to the fund for laundry money (and that was a very dark day) I did pretty well, and after all that time I feel like I've earned buying this! Amazingly 'look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves' is true! Saving change soon added up. (Obviously I didn't pay in the shop with my raggletaggle collection of 50p's and 20p's, that would just be silly.) My new baby cost £45 (and even that was reduced from £65!) which looks like nothing when its written under a picture in Vogue but in real life for a student like me I'd never considered I would actually PAY so much for something so unnecessary. I mean, I had a purse from Next, old and threadbare but in perfect working order...

However I do think it is perfectly reasonable for my first designer purchase to be at the respectable age of 19, and an investment I will (hopefully!) love and use forever; I may well look back on this day as an adult and describe it with relish and zeal, the start of a (restrained) love affair with luxury merchandise! Haha. Actually that is my view on luxury fashion in general - I agree excessive amounts are self-indulgent and unnecessary but the odd good-quality investment is just that, an investment. And I won't deny there is a bit of truth to the idea that you're buying into the lifestyle as much of anything, the values of the brand you choose and the way of life / quality of life they represent. I'm not denying, there was a buzz when this baby landed on my doorstep.







The purse is large enough to use every day, in peach leather embossed with the famous Biba stamp. You need to feel this leather. I wish you could all touch it, I now understand what they mean by 'leather like butter'. It is so soft I would like a bed made out of it and I could sink into it and swim about in its silky smooth sumptuousness. And it's peach! 
Since Daisy Lowe relaunched iconic sixties brand Biba at House of Fraser in 2010 I have been in love with the dreamy looks harking back to my personal favourite fashion period, the sixties.

So, first classic purchase: DONE (and lengthily justified.)
PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME! hahaha live and let live I say



BIG LOVE
x

5 comments:

  1. Awww, hehehe what a lovely purse! :D <3

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  2. this is amazing! well done you on investing in such a beautiful peice! :) xxx

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  3. lovely purse, and it's so lovely that you have saved up your pennies and bought yourself something you really wanted. inspired me to try do the same, im sooo guilty of buying crap with my spare change, then wonder where my money goes! xxxx

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  4. I really love it :D
    I've never even heard of biba before (clearly i am now ashamed) and i feel so tempted! Damn my "I can't afford to spend money on this even though I actually can" attitude :/ xx

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