I recently had a full bottle of hand sanitizer leak, after failing to
notice it cracked after I dropped it. Fortunately it leaked inside my le
Mobile® purse organizer.
This led me to perform a little experiment with the various purse organizers I've purchased.
No one plans to have something leak inside their purse; but as we all know accidents happen.
Water bottles, baby bottles, perfume, pens, and make-up, have leaked
inside my handbags over the years. I even had a bottle of vitamin
water with a pale purple tint leak into Grey Himalayan Kelly when I
neglected to tighten the lid!
I was very curious to see how this experiment would go.
I started with the No Sacrifice® le Mobile.
I filled it up with water, leaving it for 30 minutes; just to see what would happen.
I've put this organiser through the washing machine several times.
I've also scrubbed it with a Mr. Clean eraser, and used rubbing alcohol
on it to remove a pen stain.
It's still as good as new.
After 30 minutes, even filled with water; le Mobile® was not leaking!
So how did the others do?
(the following order are according to price; high to low)
le Mobile is second according to price.
First I tried the most expensive organizer; The Jane Finds Baginizer.
It started to leak immediately.
I didn't even get a chance to fill it.
Next up, (according to price from high to low) was the MaiTai insert
It also leaked immediately, before I could fill it up.
Samorga, too leaked immediately, and being made of felt, it soaked up the water too.
Divide & Conquer leaked like a sieve, with all the water pouring through the bottom.
Bagmate faired better. Although it still leaked, it just leaked slower.
Chameleon Structured readily leaked with water both dripping and pouring out.
Chameleon Unstructured actually leaked slower than the structured version; but it did start leaking immediately.
Each purse organizer insert; except the le Mobile® leaked.
They also leaked so fast I was unable to get past having to hold them over the sink.
I was able to walk around and hold the le Mobile over my Himalayan Birkin without worry about a single drop.
After all isn't protecting the interior of your bags one of the reasons you purchase a purse organizer?
BIRKIN 30 model handbag.
Smooth, Tyrien pink porosus crocodile. Fastening set with pink sapphires.
Receipt and quote (December 2013).
Diamond and precious metal certificate.
Characteristics of jewelry:
White gold 176.3 grams
Numbered fastening:
205 x pink sapphires/11.02 carats
Numbered jeweled padlock in its case.
40 x pink sapphires/2.01 carats.
Several dustbags, little booklet on exotic leather, box, ribbon, orange H bag.
Lilly Pulitzer for Target: They Came, They Waited, They Went Home Mad
Buyers line up for Lilly Pulitzer at a Target pop-up shop at Bryant Park in New York.
Never underestimate the hunger of a barely thawed populace for a warm breeze of Palm Beach.
Last Sunday, they lined up in droves at Target stores across the country, or set alarms for predawn hours to wake up and shop Target.com. (Some New Yorkers lined up early at a Bryant Park pop-up on Thursday.)
The
object of their collective obsession was the Lilly Pulitzer for Target
collection, an affordable line of brightly printed women’s wear,
children’s wear, home goods and matching makeup.
Within
hours (even minutes in some locations), it was almost entirely sold
out, in stores and online. According to Target, it was one of the
fastest-selling collaborations it has undertaken, out of more than 150
such joint projects since introducing the program in 1999.
Jane
Schoenborn, Lilly Pulitzer’s vice president for marketing and creative
communications, saw it all firsthand. She went to her local Target, at
the Valley Forge Shopping Center in King of Prussia, Pa., and stood in
line with the company president (at the back, she said).
“It
was slim pickings,” she said this week. “I saw a couple women I work
with clinging to the umbrellas.” She herself managed to snag a few mugs.
Since
Sunday, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have trembled with the
frustration of shut-out shoppers, and pictures surfaced of racks picked
clean, bare white hangers scattered like carrion bones on the veld.
Online, the demand was such that Target briefly shut down its website
for maintenance in the early hours of Sunday. (It refutes the notion
that the site crashed.)
The rapper Himanshu Kumar Suri, who records as Heems, in his parents' home.Credit Jesse Dittmar/Redux
Heems, né Himanshu Kumar Suri, looks equal parts regal and comfortable holding court in the back of Brooklyn’s Cafe El Beit.
Dressed in tailored black separates, his shiny hair slicked up into a
high bun, he could be dressed for any one of his many roles: art curator, clothing designer, loving uncle, political activist and, of course, rapper. His first solo album, “Eat Pray Thug,” was released last month to critical accolades. (His former project, the hip-hop group Das Racist, was likewise beloved for its incisive and playful lyrics.) But Suri barely allowed himself time to celebrate, instead diving right back into community politics — specifically, the desperate call for a taxi stand near Manhattan’s beloved Punjabi Deli.
Credit Jesse Dittmar/Redux
Suri’s political
ideology is the force that drives his music as well as his visual
aesthetic. “Eat Pray Thug” is, by his own admission, a rap record about
Islamophobia, made by an Indian and Middle Eastern New Yorker who
defines his personal style as “Taliban chic.” He’s fully aware that he
contains multitudes — so thankfully, his end goal isn’t for people to get
him. “I like my fashion to be expressive of who I am, but also to
confuse and play with your understanding of the world around you,” he
says. “Not necessarily antagonizing, just playing with people’s
expectations.”
Honor your background.
“I like to combine street wear and high fashion with Indian clothing. It
might be just one article, like a hat or a scarf, but I can include
something that looks like my grandfather would have worn it, almost like
a uniform. Yesterday I had my Pashtun cap on. And I love my kurtas.
They’re super comfortable, super mundane. Indian people wear them every
day, whether you’re the common man going to the grocery store or you’re a
politician with millions of Euros in a Swiss account, you still wear a
kurta — a long white tunic shirt — with pajama pants. I love that it’s a
uniform, but it’s extremely chic and elegant.”
Early impressions stick.
“In one of our earlier Das Racist press photos, I was wearing one of
Victor’s really colorful sweaters, so I’ve always been associated with
this colorful, hipstery, thrift-shop aesthetic, though that was not my
aesthetic. I was much more comfortable wearing $500 T-shirts than I was
wearing used, smelly ones. I like it in theory — I like the idea of not
paying so much for clothes — but I think maybe because of the immigrant
thing, the idea of wearing someone’s used clothing is just not okay in
my household. Like, ‘Why are you wearing someone else’s used clothing?
We didn’t come here and work our asses off so you could wear some white
dude’s old Bulls T-shirt from ’92 that he threw away.'”
Look to friends with similar backgrounds for inspiration.
“I was hanging out with Waris Ahluwalia.
He’s another South Asian in New York. He’s amazing, and a sweetheart.
If you want to talk about who else is stylish, well, Waris is one of the
most stylish — not just South Asians, but New Yorkers.”
Respect the means of production.
“My mother came here with a master’s degree in economics, and in the
daytime she would bag groceries at the Pathmark for four dollars an
hour, and at night she worked in an Indian guy’s sweatshop making
elastic belts with my friend Sunil’s mom. Thank God she had that job,
which was really helpful to get us through a tough time financially.
It’s not the most glamorous career; she did what she had to. Textiles
are a huge part of the conversation on women in India and labor.”
Have your clothes custom-made.
“Coming into this album, I wanted to have a defined aesthetic, not just
with my videos and album art, but with my clothing and look as well.
I’ve been trying to wear as much custom stuff as I can, designing my own
stuff or having it made, and wearing more Indian clothes that are
harder to find. I’m still expressing myself and having fun and playing
with colors and shapes and textures, but I’m not buying $500 Acne
Studios shirts anymore. I got a bunch of fabric from India and had it
tailored in Thailand; they got it done in three days.”
Listen to your parents.
“The reason I wear a bright orange Hermès scarf often is because it
looks like a Hindu priest’s scarf. When I brought that home, my dad was
like, ‘That was three dollars, right? You’re wearing a sadhu scarf.’ A
sadhu is a wandering ascetic who is a devotee of Shiva. I was like,
‘Yeah … three dollars.’ It’s a little joke with myself that the H for
‘Hermès’ actually stands for ‘Hindu.’ Coming from this immigrant
background helps me keep my money and fashion in check.”
Credit Jesse Dittmar/Redux
Don’t let capitalism control your desires, but be gentle with those who do.
“My feelings about materialism are quite complicated. I’m guilty of
materialism. I understand the context of materialism, especially in the
American working class. I get why, when we don’t have anything, then
when we get stuff, we get excited. When other people tell me, ‘Oh, I
don’t like most rap, but your rap I love,’ I take offense at that,
because I come from that culture. I don’t agree with materialism or
misogyny, but I look at context before I point fingers.”
Do things that make you feel beautiful, even when people stare.
“Sometimes when I’m out, if I’m feeling a certain way, I’ll put kajal in
my eyes,” Heems says, using the South Asian term for kohl, or eyeliner.
“When I was in India I’d see these gorgeous little babies with kajal in
their eyes. As you get older it’s mostly the women that wear it — the
men are forbidden — but little babies, little kids, boys, can put kajal
in their eyes. I didn’t like that distinction. Why can you do it when
you’re 5 and not when you’re 15?”
Stay away from stylists.
“I’ve always been averse to working with stylists. A lot of times they’d
have preconceived notions of what rappers were supposed to dress like,
so they’d bring silver chains with dollar signs on them. Like, are you
joking me? First off, this is just racist, and you’re an idiot. Second
of all, this doesn’t look good.”
Paris Thieves Steal Over $1M Worth Of Hermès Handbags
Thieves made off with 500 Hermes bags (valued collectively at $1.07
million) after robbing a packaging and logistics facility northwest of
Paris on Thursday evening. According to WWD,
a group of six individuals forced the lone manager at the supply space
to load the bags onto a truck before they fled in two vehicles.
The products, which included canvas and leather handbags ranging from $500 to $5,000, still were missing as of Friday afternoon.
If you subscribe to the view that contemporary
art has been swallowed by big money, big galleries, big collectors and
big brands then the merging of visual art and expensive retail visual
merchandising is perfectly complete in a show that opened in London at
the weekend.Whereas the retrospective of
Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami at Los Angeles’ Museum of
Contemporary Art in 2007 which included his own “line’ ‘of Louis Vuitton
products for sale could be interpreted as playfully ironic – the
French leather goods brand Hermes at the Saatchi Gallery (natch)
is displaying its wares in ways not too dissimilar to how it does the
Christmas windows at its flagship store on Rue St Honore in Paris.
The Hermes- organised exhibition’s theme is “flanerie” — the
elegant French term for strolling or wandering without
purpose. ”“Flânerie, that wonderfully liberating art of urban wandering,
is second nature to Hermès, one could even say our most profound
nature”, says Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the Hermes artistic director on the Saatchi Gallery website.
It continues: “Quintessentially Parisian, flânerie is about
revelling in the unexpected. ‘The journey through Wanderland draws its
coherence from two intrinsic elements of la flânerie: dreaming and
freedom of spirit, explains Bruno Gaudichon, curator of La Piscine-Musée
d’Art et d’Industrie in Roubaix, who was commissioned to create the
exhibition.”
Eleven rooms at the Saatchi Gallery in Sloane Square have
been sequestered by the Parisian set designer and high-end furniture
designer Hubert le Gall enticing visitors into a highfalutin window
shopping without having to board the Eurostar for the two and half hour
train trip to Paris to experience the real thing.
The website gushes: (It) plunge visitors, the flâneurs
themselves, into a dream world of joy and fantasy, with a Paris-inspired
landscape as its backdrop. The eleven rooms present a series of
installations in various media, created by a diverse selection of
artists. From the Parisian square, to the covered passage, or a cafe of
forgotten objects this veritable extended cabinet of curiosities will
delight and intrigue visitors, inviting each of them to open their eyes,
free their minds and be enveloped by the colour, sounds and images that
surround them”.
A number of artists working in various media including video
artists Romain Laurent, Nicolas Tourte, Magali Desbazeille and
Siegfried Canto have created highly theatrical rooms for the exhibition.
Among the exhibits are a 19th century Parisian shopping arcade while
one room is filled with “special edition” handbags including the famous
Hermes Birkin Bag which normally sells for about $30,000 — but at
Saatchi is just for admiring.
But Dumas argues that this is a show for everyone. He told The Telegraph: ”It’s
not about marketing the brand, it’s more about conveying who we are,
something that even children can enjoy, you just need a fresh eye to
look at it”.
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE: Hermès is taking a trip —
to nowhere in particular — with an exhibition that opens today dedicated
to flânerie, or the act of wandering the city streets and drinking in
the details of everyday life. Wanderland will run until May 2 at the
Saatchi Gallery in London, and move to Paris in September, Turin, Italy,
in December and China next year.
Hermès has dedicated 2015 to the theme of flânerie and transformed an
upper floor of the gallery into a series of whimsical and surreal
settings across 11 rooms. One features vintage walking sticks —
including one for the dandy, with a built-in bit of chalk for cleaning
the collar and a brush for dusting down the suit — while another is
filled with graffiti created by the artist known as Cept, and another
with floor panels that “talk” when a visitor walks on them. A café
dedicated to lost objects features little tables inset with pocket
watches or tiny paint boxes that, on closer inspection, feature film
screens the size of postage stamps. A pillbox and glass bottle on one
table glow with psychedelic colors while the image of a lady dances at
the bottom of a coffee cup.
Objects have been taken from the Hermès archive, the museum
collection of Emile Hermès at 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris
and Hermès’ contemporary collections and displays have been created from
a variety of media.
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès, loves the buzz and
beauty of London, and could not resist opening the show there. “Paris
would have been the obvious choice, but London is the ideal city for the
21st century flâneur. There is something happening here,” he said.
Dumas said his aim was to create an exhibition that would embody
“what wandering is about. My hope is that people come to the show, maybe
forget reality, and then look at their own city with new eyes. We must
never lose our ability to dream, to wander, to go with the flow and let
ourselves be surprised.”
The exhibition was created by Bruno Gaudichon, curator of La
Piscine-Musée d’Art et d’Industrie in Roubaix, while the set designer
was Hubert le Gall. The brand has also created a book of kooky collages
with Actes Sud that reflect the rooms and objects on show. Dumas said
the show is also a meditation on the act of creation, and hopes it will
awaken visitors’ empathy, so they can “think about the world we live in,
and feel the presence of those who made the objects.”
A Birkin Himalaya bag by Hermès in white crocodile, circa 2009, set a new record at Christie’s Paris, selling for $171,675 on March 9. Hermes
offerings dominated Christie’s inaugural handbag and accessory sale in
Paris, which raised a total of $2.79 million, double the pre-sale
estimate. All the top 10 lots were by Hermès, primarily
Birkin models, though other models went several times over their
pre-sale estimates including a tricolor Kelly Sellier bag, circa 1992,
selling for $99,735 and a Kelly picnic, circa 2011, selling for $53,955.
The world
of fashion may appear to some as a fluffy, vacuous domain populated by
models and fashionistas draped in the latest bizarre creations, but it
is a valuable sector – demonstrated this week by the £2.3billion
mega-merger of luxury fashion websites Net-a-Porter and Italian giant
Yoox.
Combined
sales of the two websites is almost £1billion, and the desire to
purchase the latest 1970s-inspired designer fringe handbag or bohemian
floral cape has fuelled these businesses’ growth.
Dedicated
followers of fashion who often spend the average monthly salary on
Net-a-Porter items justify their extravagance by calling it an
‘investment’ piece – as do fashion addicts, though they sometimes
comfort themselves with the thought that what they are buying is a
‘classic’.
But rather than buying a handbag should a savvy shopper instead invest in the retailers themselves?
Shares
in the major luxury brands have soared over the past half decade, and
even British upstart Mulberry, whose shares crashed in 2012, is still a
top performer if you take a five-year view. Even with Italian brand
Prada lacklustre this month – because of the crackdown on lavish
spending in China – investors have not been put off the sector.
Rahul
Sharma, consumer analyst at Neev Capital, said: ‘In the past five years
luxury stocks have done very well. Some are up 15 per cent year on year.
Many have tripled in value, though the average handbag has not lasted
as well.’
But
with clothing re-sale websites springing up around the world, which are
doing a roaring trade, is it really better to buy shares in a fashion
retailer or its latest ‘it’ bag?
Looking
at the returns on some items on websites including Tags On, Vestiaire
Collective, Asos-owned Covetique and flash sales website Secretsales.com
reveals that well-kept items such as handbags can sometimes be sold for
near the purchase price. Some will use the product for a few months
before selling it again.
But there are no guaranteed returns from a luxury resale website – it depends on the brand and the product.
Nicola
McClafferty, chief executive and co-founder of Covetique, says French
brand Hermès has the ‘most key investment pieces’. Some sell at auction
for thousands and a Hermès Himalayan Nilo Crocodile Birkin bag with 18c
white-gold accessories sold for $185,000 (£125,000) last month. She
adds: ‘High resell values in Hermès is driven not just by the highly
coveted nature of the brand but also by the fact it is one of the few
brands that consistently raises prices annually.’
Requiring
a little less outlay could be a bag from Mulberry. The British brand
tried to reinvent itself in 2012 and hired Bruno Guillon from Hermès.
But after multiple profit warnings, Guillon left last year. Last month
it appointed foreign fashion veteran Thierry Andretta as chief executive
and hired a new creative director – former Céline accessories design
director Johnny Coca – who starts this summer.
Sharma
says: ‘I am not overly keen on Mulberry shares but they are doing the
right thing now.’ He adds that Hermès is an exception, saying: ‘Many
companies have introduced so many different styles that very few of the
older items – except perhaps Hermès – have held their value. As
investments they don’t compare with investing in actual shares.’
Looking
at the stats, Sharma is right. The return on a Burberry trench coat or
Louis Vuitton handbag is paltry compared with the rise in share price:
LVMH shares have more than doubled and Burberry nearly trebled since the
start of 2010. If, five years ago, you’d spent the price of a Louis
Vuitton Alma bag on shares, you’d now be able to buy the handbag with
the profit.
Shoes
might not represent such a good return. Jimmy Choo listed in October at
140p a share: its shoes resell for about 45 per cent but shares are up
more than 20 per cent.
But
have luxury stocks peaked? Sharma thinks not: ‘The sector is still in
good shape and I believe it is still a good investment.’
Laura
Levy, luxury research analyst at Barclays, adds: ‘We see luxury as an
attractive sector to invest in driven by the emerging market consumer.’
For
the shopper who is both fashion conscious and investment savvy, the
solution might be to buy shares and shop – Mulberry offers a 20pc
discount on up to £5,000 of purchases to investors who have a minimum of
250 shares. So, splash out just north of £2,000 on shares and you can
snap up a £995 Bayswater, a £1,200 Cara Delevingne rucksack, a £595
Tessie tote and a £1,600 Willow Tote each year – funds permitting – and
save almost £1,000.
