Oops, it’s a fake handbag… But who cares?

WHAT’S it with handbags and women? Why so inseparable? Be it in the mall, restaurant, work, church (best place to flaunt it) and even at the beach, it’s almost freaking impossible to find a woman without one. And if you open the bag to see the inside, it’ll make you crazy wondering how all that stuff got in there.

Lipstick, I-pad, clothes, make-up kit, nail-art kit, phones, keys to the house, keys to the car, photo albums, CDs and all that jazz. Some even have another bag inside to put in more stuff like credit cards, cash, ATMs, coins and nail-cutters too; thank God the house can’t be bent.

There’s probably more stuff inside a woman’s bag than in the department store.

I’ve asked quite a lot of female friends about the phenomenon and everyone said that it’s because women have a lot of things to carry. A bag becomes necessary; the bigger the better.

But having a bag doesn’t end things for a woman. She’ll need more than one to go along with the dress for the day. Women are like that, they would most certainly complement what they wear with what they carry. The more bags they have, the better still.

Things, however, don’t end for the woman, not just yet. She may have more than one bag, she may have bigger bags as well, but she’ll definitely want them “branded”, not entirely expensive, the label just needs to be there.

And there are a lot of handbags out there that set the trend like Mouwards, Coach, Hermes, Chanel, Gardino, Marc Jacobs, Lana Marks, Gucci and, of course, Louis Vuitton or LV. So what makes?

Well, first is that the names are synonymous with high quality. For instance, the handbags (all series) that LV comes up with have this distinction of being very meticulously done, by hands that is, with materials going through some ultra stringent quality control.

Second, since the handbags are hand-crafted, they don’t produce one series massively, it’s always a limited version, so re-selling is discouraged. And third, since it’s an iconic brand, meticulously hand-crafted, underwent strict scrutiny and limited in supply, they simply don’t come cheap. Or do they?

Not surprisingly, study shows that the LV brand is the most counterfeited handbag worldwide and that more than 90% of all LV handbags sold are fake ones. That doesn’t mean other brands are un-copied; they are.

Counterfeiters make available an assortment of merchandise to cater to every taste. Plus, these fakers can go cheaper than free, so they enjoy a huge market.

Funny, but we need not be told that, as one would find the LV, Coach, Gucci and other elite labels anywhere.

From the malls to the street sellers, counterfeited handbags are but aplenty and there’s no stopping the selling for there’s no stopping the buying. It’s not that most women love the fake one, they just couldn’t afford Louis’ genuine monogram. Sadly, there are those who would shell out all there is to get the real stuff, even if it means selling everything.

But just the same, be it genuine or fake, they find comfort when the label is there. And the fakers know that too well; they thrive on that weakness. It’s vanity and admit it or not, we are vain; it’s our nature.

That demon in us levels up our desires; to go beyond conventional, to do the “in” thing and go for the “it” ones. And when the pocket can’t match it, the urge is modified to settle for less; even to that extent of patronizing what is obviously unreal. In the end, the devil that wears Prada prevails.

But perhaps vanity simply gives us what we crave for, the feeling of being with the pack; convincing us that we’re not left out of the mainstream. It may just be satisfying too, that even only in label, we trim down the gap between the rich who can afford to buy and us who don’t have much to spend.

Maybe we find solace in that; cheap but fashionable, poor but happy or poor but fashionable, cheap but happy. Either way, it may just be soothing being with what’s “in.”

So you’ve got a fake handbag? Who cares? It’s you who decide it’s branded and you’re damn happy about it.