Four and Twenty: pocketbook

Thursday, August 15, 2013

On the Radar -- A Red Handbag

Things have been pretty hectic around the Blackbird World Headquarters lately. As you learned in the Junk Love post for this week, the other Blackbird deserted me to travel across the ocean and have all kinds of adventures in Ireland. It was a really boring, long, sad two weeks while she was gone, but I was productive! Well, I was for the first week. The second week -- not so much. All I can say is that I am thankful for my Netflix subscription, and I now have a new appreciation for Gossip Girl.

(In my defense, I had to watch something. I tried Antiques Roadshow, but believe me, that just made it worse.)

But since she got back home, we have been junk shopping like mad. (Boy, have we been finding some really good stuff!) I've been listing our new finds left and right in the Etsy shop. We're both getting ready to start teaching again -- she's really the teacher, I just have one class. And the blog has been suffering. You know, for example, a Radar post on Friday...

Anyway, in the middle of all this, we sold this bag on Etsy:

It's a super sweet frame handbag by Dover, and it has a lovely new home in Texas. However, while I was bringing this bag from our storage studio to the house, I got several offers from people wanting to purchase it. When I told them it was sold, they asked, "Do you have any more?"

Oooooookaaaaayyyyy....What's that about? And then I checked the stats on Etsy. This bag's views spiked last Saturday. A major spike.

And then I remembered what one lady who wanted to buy this bag said -- she said, "I'm all about a red bag right now." So I looked it up, and lo and behold! EVERYBODY'S about a red bag this fall!

I feel like I am so behind the curve! But maybe it's because I'm ALWAYS about a red bag. Red is my favorite color, and if given the choice, I will always pick it.

So here's my roundup of designer bags to drool over. Look at these, and then just go to Etsy or your local antique store and buy a vintage one. I mean, ours was only $18. That's a steal!

Roberto Cavalli, Fall 2013

Marchesa clutches, Fall 2013

Dolce and Gabbana, Fall 2013

All Valentino, Fall 2013

Alexander McQueen, Fall 2013

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Junk Love: Enid Collins!

We Blackbirds have a lot of things in common. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I was looking through my old photo albums in search of a picture of my brother. I never did find the one I was after, but I did find a picture of myself in kindergarten, wearing my favorite dress and a purely angelic smile. I showed it to the other Blackbird, who stared at it for a few seconds and then got up and went into the next room. She dug through her own box of pics, and triumphantly pulled out her own kindergarten snapshot.

We didn't meet until much, much later, but I think it's pretty clear that our friendship was preordained. (In the interest of full disclosure, I confess that I hated her when we met. It was our love of junk that bridged that gap, after I discovered how many collections we had in common. Or, it was her winning personality. Yeah, that was it.) Anyway, despite our similarities, we also have a lot of differences. I am a perpetual t-shirt and jeans kind of girl. She is, too, except for her tendency to wear dresses a lot. She also has a collection of vintage purses. This means that whenever we are going anywhere out of the ordinary, it involves choosing the perfect thing to wear and the perfect purse. I know, this is not a novel idea. It just gives me an excuse to roll my eyes on a fairly regular basis.

But, I have a dark secret. I used to be girly. In the era of that kindergarten picture, I was a dress girl most of the time. I especially loved stripes and rainbow colors. And, I had a pretty large purse collection of my own. And my purse always had to coordinate with my outfit. How else was I supposed to transport my fruity chapstick, handful of pennies, and pink plastic compact mirror? I hit a definite turning point a few years later (oh, the trauma of the Great Pageant Incident!), when I abandoned my beauty regime and fancy things in favor of comfort clothes with pockets. I still carry chapstick, and sometimes pennies, but always in a pocket.

However, I still love vintage purses. I don't buy them for myself, because I would never use them, but I appreciate their fabulousness. If I need to live vicariously, I buy one as a present for the other Blackbird. And, at the top of my wish list (for her, of course) is a vintage Enid Collins. Anything with classic 1960s metallic accents and brightly colored jewel critters appeals to my inner rainbow child. So, allow me to proceed with the wish list. (What makes it even better is that if I asked the other Blackbird to select pictures of Enid Collins purses without any guidance from myself, she would probably end up with this same collection of photos. Like I said, our friendship was preordained.) I want to put a chapstick in every single one!