The Handbag Bubble

Eric Wilson of the New York Times wonders if the era of the $1,000 handbag is about to burst. The article has lots of juicy tidbits and is worth quoting at length:

Status handbags, you see, are a lot like housing. After the rise of the $1,000 purse, fashion’s equivalent of the $1 million studio, there inevitably comes talk of a backlash. Are we now living in a handbag bubble?

Handbag sales in the $7 billion United States market are expected to increase by 15 percent this year, according to the stock research firm Telsey Advisory Group. This is considered a disappointment, because the growth is about half as strong as the category’s 28 percent gain in 2004.

In some circles, status bags have already become a punch line. A label called Slow and Steady Wins the Race recently produced a series of $100 handbags that recreated the shapes of iconic designs using inexpensive canvas — “a visual hyperbolic expression about contemporary fashion’s attention and obsession with designer handbags,” says its Web site.

New York Times: Is This It for the It Bag?