Rent your Gucci handbag!
Wake up and smell the Chloe. The Chloe Paddington bag, that is. And the Balenciaga Motorcycle, Gucci, Louis Vuitton Eclipse, Marc Jacobs Stam, Judith Lieber miniadaure, Fendi Spy, Dior Detective and every other classic and trendy zillion dollar handbag you can think of.
Thanks to two new rental websites, it's now possible for you (or that hard-to-please fashionista on your holiday gift list) to carry the $500 or $2000 bag of your dreams - and change for another brand's model every month - for a fraction of what it would cost to buy all the latest must-have bags outright.
Both sites also offer insurance, from $3 to $20, depending on the cost of the Gucci bag, so you won't be left holding the, errr...bag, if your Mulberry or Dooney & Bourke rental gets damaged or stolen. Just think: maybe you can buy a new wallet with all the money you save!
Status Gucci bags have been taken to new heights in the designer era, with top fashion companies adorning their authentic bags with logos and other signs of luxury, such as skins and fur. A recent Doyle New York auction featured a black crocodile Hermès Birkin, with a customized clasp and lock featuring 14 carats of pavé diamonds, that sold for $64,800.
'Carried Away: All About Bags,' a lexicon of bags from Hermès Paris has this entry:
Accordeon. A lady's bag made of two or three pouches side by side, fastened to each other by stitching, snaps or slide fasteners to allow expansion or contraction of the bag, according to its desired capacity.
