he passes up bags with too many nail heads or grommets. “Too busy,” she says.
She’s looking for hip and functional bags with clean lines and good construction. She prefers bags that are lightweight and labels that aren’t carried by competitors.
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She stays away from the supersized-bags that have become popular of late, saying that Baltimore women - who don’t walk the streets like New York women - prefer their handbags more compact. She also avoids other characteristics, such as suede, and black bags with white stitching.
“Baltimore doesn’t like white stitching,” Levitas says. “I don’t know why.”
After the two trade shows in New York - the first one at the Chelsea Piers is more high-end than the other, at the Javits Center - Levitas has ordered close to 250 handbags to come into her store from August to September.
This will make up Gotta Have Bags’ fall line of selections and styles.
At the end of all the foraging, she is exhausted and slightly anxious.
“You only know that you’ve bought right,” Levitas says, yo-yo bouncing a bag to see how much it weighs, “when it walks out the door.”
It is the driving question behind most buyers’ purchases: Will this handbag sell?
“This [job] can be chancy,” says Jodi L. Brodie, who buys the fashion-forward handbags for Treasure House in Pikesville, as she rides the tour bus back to Baltimore from a day at the shows. “If we bring it in, we’re making a statement saying that we believe in it and this is what we think is important for the season. Some things work, and some things don’t.”
In Baltimore, customers tend to be “safer” than many buyers would like.
“In a way, we’re a bit provincial,” says Lola Abt Hahn, buyer for handbags and accessories at Octavia in Pikesville. “They love fashion, but … ” She chooses her words carefully, not wanting to paint too bleak a picture of Baltimore.
Abt Hahn says she loved Lockheart, a new line she discovered at Accessorie Circuit, the higher-end of the two shows Levitas attended. But she isn’t sure if Baltimore’s women - who prefer recognizable brands - would see what she saw in the fanciful, embellished line of leather bags,.
“If I carry this new line that I just saw,” she says, “it’s so edgy and so fabulous. I don’t know. I would carry it, but I don’t think I can sell it.”
Abt Hahn and Brodie have many of the same customers - women with means and a real sense of high fashion.
Octavia, for instance, carries designer Marc Jacobs’ highly sought-after status bags. And Treasure House was one of the first to introduce Kooba - the latest “It” label - to Baltimore.
Levitas’ customers, on the other hand, want style and flair, but with a slightly lower price tag. So Levitas’ days traipsing up and down convention center aisles are filled with visions of dollar signs.
Botkier, a rising star in the handbag world, required buyers to purchase at least 10 bags. Fine for big department stores. Too much for Levitas.
Keeping costs low is harder this year -rising gas costs have worked their way even into the price of handbags.
“In the last two months, things have gone up 14 percent” for manufacturers, says Glen Teres, designer for Borsetta International, where Levitas buys many of her bags. His suppliers are “not absorbing those oil prices.”
Shopping in Beverly Hills last week I strolled Wilshire Boulevard popping in and out of fancy stores sizing up all the new designer handbags. There are a number of new looks for Fall 2005, and prices have a new look, too. Did you know designer handbags have become the staple in most wardrobes? It doesn’t take a genius to buy a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but to purchase the correct designer handbag to pull it all together has become quite an art.
In conversations with many handbag salespeople, it was obvious the upcoming season will offer a variety of wild colors, exotic leathers, and metallic finished leathers. They will appear in shoulder styles, clutches, slings and large totes. Most designer bags remain consistent in size and function. The variations from season to season come to color, hardware, texture and price.
Prices are a difficult topic for handbag lovers to discuss, it became the purpose of the Beverly Hills shopping trip. Which designers will rise to the top? Which handbags will have the highest price tags? These thoughts offered astonishing observations wondering through the high-end boutiques and department stores.
Doing a bit of mental gymnastics with a few designer handbag price tags, it became obvious a calculator was needed! Prices are competing with Los Angeles mortgage payments! One designer bag, constructed of scratch resistant, pebble grain calf leather, had a hefty $3500.00 price tag. Durability to last a life time is a major characteristic of a quality handbag, but let’s get real here, women change handbags as often as they change their nail polish. Paying hefty prices for a designer handbag a few times each month is fashionable, but not healthy or wise.
Not mentioning any names, a lengthy conversation with a handbag specialist in a very well-known department store shed light on the day’s mission. We strolled the designer handbag department with calculator in hand. Punching in numbers of our favorite high-end designer, we came up with a hefty five-figure total for 10 handbags. Then, with jaws dropped open, the average price was uncovered! As expected, little was left to shock and surprise. Based on a sampling of the designer handbag prices, the price for a brand new, high-end designer handbag this season averages an all-time high of $2000.00 USD.
Oh my! What a price we pay to pull it all together with that pair of denim jeans and T-shirt! We have become the hunters in search of the best designer handbag we can find. And, when we know it will coordinate with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then we know we’ve selected the best bag. We want to look good, and we want to feel good, too. It would be nice to know we can purchase a bag from a new designer and still make a mortgage payment this same month.
Here’s a solution. For those of us who know style and don’t want to compromise quality, find a designer handbag expert to coach and guide your investments. Lacking modesty, I’ll volunteer recommendations on a variety of designer handbags available at a fraction of what you’d expect to pay in a retail store.
You can actually purchase several handbags for the average cost of one designer handbag if you shop wisely. If you are a true designer handbag addict, and you purchase a new handbag whenever you get the urge, then you need a reliable source. Shop carefully at sites specializing in designer handbags, and you’ll find your favorite designers at as much as 50% less than the average cost on Rodeo Drive!
They are flashy, hot and very in for the season. Metallic, sequence and don’t forget the faux fur handbags. Just take a look at a crowd and you will see quite a collection of each of these three. They are not hard to spot and definitely make heads turn. Which head turning style do you like to carry this season?
Let’s start with the flashiest of them all, sequence. They are everywhere and everyone is carrying them. They do seem to be a bigger hit with the younger scene. They come in an array of colors as well as sequence styles. Carry them with any outfit and they’ll dress it up no matter what the look. Do be careful, the looks you get may only be on your handbag and not on you. If you want your great outfit to stand out, I don’t recommend carrying one of these handbags.
Metallic is all the rage also. Just wait for the holiday parties and you will see an explosion of these. They come in many different colors but bronze definitely tops the list. There will be the gold rush in December for all those fancy outfits. Gold is being paired with black and also brown. That black little dress is going to look fabulous with the metallic evening bag and the big beaded necklaces.
Now don’t forget the faux fur bags. Some stand out very much but not as much as the sequence and metallics. There are plenty of faux fur trimmed jackets, tops and boots out there. The faux fur handbag will set off the ensemble. Some are a bit on the wild side and others are just really neat looking. As long as they don’t make a roar, these are the tamest out there of all three.
Sequence, metallic and faux fur, get them while they are hot!
