It was in 2003, shortly after my 1st child was born, that I purchased my first ever Hermes bag– it was an Hermes orange Kelly in 35cm, with palladium hardware. When I carried the bag around with my baby, one of the younger “ladies who lunch” whom I visited in her family’s retail shop asked me what bag I was toting. She commented that it looked like a “briefcase” and that it was something she’d never be caught dead carrying because it was in her words, “ugly.” LOL. I never forgot that comment because I roared with laughter after hearing her say those words, as she crinkled her nose. I don’t remember the bag that she was carrying, but I distinctly remembered her not knowing what an Hermes Kelly or Birkin was. I respected her opinion of my bag. After all, it was my “ugly” bag. LOL. But hey, I was so proud of that bag because it was something I had bought for myself with my own hard- earned money– my own push present LOL. I bought the bag thinking it was going to be the most expensive bag I’d ever buy, and that it was also my last. I had bought the Hermes bag even before I ended up buying the Louis Vuitton Neo Denim Speedy.
This was incidentally the bag which jumpstarted this bag blog as “The Bag Hag Diaries.” Back then, I was still blogging under a different website at Blogspot. Ok let’s not get nostalgic because when I went to look at some of my older posts to pull out the photos of the bags above, I cringed hahahaha!! Guys it’s NOT Throwback Thursday so let’s not go further LOL.
Anyyyway, fast forward to 2016, that very same woman who swore never to carry Hermes Kelly bags (and who didn’t even know Hermes back then), now has over 10 (or most likely more) Hermes bags. It’s just funny to remember a conversation from yesteryears (haha never say never). Life back then was so much simpler. Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga were considered the “top” bags to lust- for and to own, and well, also because these bag- loving women were not yet going crazy over Hermes. Women back then still had sticker shock when they find out the price of a Hermes bag. And back then, Hermes bags were not even that easy to purchase yet because resellers in Manila knew nothing about the brand. I even remember teaching one reseller (who was more used to selling Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga bags) about Hermes birkins when we met in Rockwell Powerplant Mall because this person knew absolutely nothing about it at the time 🙂 But hey, that said, I’m definitely not the best Hermes resource person around– for the most comprehensive information on Hermes, visit the Hermes boutique 🙂
I find it astounding that the brand which once had no presence in our country, suddenly became the Hermes top bag brand that many women aspired to own. The brand was introduced to me back in college (in the late 90s *don’t bother counting back to know my age please LOL*) by a Japanese classmate of mine who was at the time wearing a Hermes Kelly watch to class. It was the bag that I stared at inside the Hermes store in one of the shopping trips with my fellow international (Asian) students. And it was one of the bags I aspired to own one day when I receive my own paycheck. At the time, the birkin was priced under US$4,500.