Okay enough with the digressions. My point is that if you're having issues with a bag, then maybe someone else who either wants to buy a bag or has bought a bag (but is too timid, afraid, lazy - whatever adjective you want to use here) to bring it up. If I bring the issue up here I help people make better, more informed decisions.
So let's talk Chanel Classic Flap. No blog entry would be complete without a story from my past. So here goes.
When I was 28 years old, I graduated law school and I was about to join a big, huge Bay Street firm (that's like a Wall Street or Park Avenue firm in the US or a big UK firm for everyone else). I had to fit in with the big wigs but I also had some good coin coming to me from my new job. As a treat to myself and to show the world I had made it, I wanted a classic flap Chanel bag for myself.
I went to the ONLY Chanel boutique at the time in all of this MASSIVE land called Canada and started talking to the very snooty, stuck up sales rep. She kinda scared me and made me feel like I was an inferior person. I did not like being there at all. I was still young and timid and I had come from a very poor background and so I was not hoity or toity enough for her at all.
In my head, and this is the truth that I still laugh about to this day, I was thinking that a real Chanel bag would be about $400.00 (back in 1998 that was some SERIOUS money for a handbag - remember a lot of these designers were around back then but they were no where near as main stream as they are today). So here was ready to lay down $400.00 for a handbag. Or so I thought.
The lady showed me the classic flap bag and I was immediately IN THE STORE impressed with it. It's like when I really like a pair of shoes and suddenly in the store a half size smaller than my regular shoe size miraculous fits. It's only when I get home that I really pay for that purchase!
I told the snooty saleslady that I was going to take the bag. She said great and tallied up the cost for me. The total came to $2,187.54. I remember the number vividly because I think I shat myself that day.
Since this woman had already made me feel so small and insignificant I did not want to give her the pleasure of seeing me walk out empty handed and so I gave her my credit card, hands shaking hoping it would not decline, and bought the handbag. I don't think prior to this moment I had ever, ever bought anything so expensive. I can honestly say my first car, a 1980 Audi!!, was cheaper at $900.00!! And that was a freakin' car, people!! Sure, it was a rusted out, no back seat, ripped interior car but it got me from point A to point B just fine!
This was a handbag. All it was going to do was make me fit in with my new snotty lawyer colleagues.
Anyway, I took that bag home and I opened up the box. I could not, for my life, let my mother see it since she would throttle me on the spot for spending that kind of money on a handbag! I took a closer look at it and my heart sank. I could not believe how un-leathery the bag looked. I took a closer look at it and at first I thought the bag was defective. The triangular pattern on the bag was not even or symmetrical, the bag itself, closed, looked asymmetrical as well...like it was crooked. Like a drunk person sewed it together. Back then you did not buy replica items from anywhere except some guy with a big coat on the street so the thought that it was a fake did not even cross my mind.
I put the bag back in it's box and I kinda cried because here I was supposed to be all worldly and grown up and I had just literally wasted $2,200.00! $2,200.00 that I didn't really have too. That hurt a bit more.
The moral of this story is that I had never seen a real Chanel bag before. I had never felt one and I had no close friends that had one to compare it to. The explanation for what I thought was defective is that THAT IS THE WAY A CHANEL BAG looks. That is the way that they make their bags.
Firstly, you'll be disappointed with the leather. Since it is pulled tight lambskin, it is plastic-y looking and it is very, well, for lack of a better word, cheap looking. That is until you start to appreciate it. It becomes beautiful when you put it together and have the whole bag.
The uneven triangular sizes are a character trait of Chanel classic flap bags. In fact, if you find a bag that has perfect triangles, run. It's a really, really bad fake.
The asymmetrical look of the bag when is perfectly closed is another characteristically trait of the bag itself.
Now, let's bring this home. I sell thousands of classic flap bags and have sold more than I can relay here over the past year of being in business. 80% of the people that buy them have never seen a real Chanel bag in their life or if they have they have not see it close up to inspect its intricacies. Without fail, the same 80% of the people that purchase the bag from me write me back AS SOON AS THEY GET THEM BACK that they'd like a refund because the bag to them looks and feels fake. I then go through my usual drill of questions and ask all 80% of these people if they have seen a real Chanel bag in real life. As expected, all 80% reply no. I then ask all of them NICELY that before they waste their money on postage in returning the bag back to me, to do me a favour and go to a Chanel boutique or a store in their area and take a look at the real bag.
I can proudly and honestly say that after their visit to the boutique, all 80% have written me back to apologize for their spurt of anger, their dislike of the bag, their lack of knowing, etc. I have the emails to back this claim up. I have had NO RETURNS (except one bag that was honestly damaged in the mail), not one out of all the original people that wanted a return. Most of them actually have written me back and thanked me for such a wonderful bag that did not cost them $2,187.54!!! but still gave them the look that it did.
If you ever wonder why I have such a strict return policy it is for this MAIN REASON. Most of us have not seen the real handbags. And even if we have seen them, most of us have not had the time or opportunity to inspect the bags close up. And that is totally okay, folks. These are luxury items and we all know that we're not all made to own luxury items. We weren't all created to be opera singers, bikini models or rich beyond our dreams. We're all different.
I had (and still have) that same real Chanel and remember, for years, I thought it was garbage. Money wasted. I can totally understand that a first response for a replica, that we have nothing to compare to, but is uneven, looks like fake leather, and is crooked, is DEFINITELY going to be of disdain. I do get that. I totally get that. And believe me if that Chanel boutique had more than one sales rep there (I checked over several weeks and always saw the same snotty one), I would have returned my bag as well! Trust.
Chanel bags are tricky. They certainly don't look like they are worth much but in some very intangible and inexplicable way, they MAKE an outfit. Coco Chanel is infamous for taking very simple designs and making them exquisite. This is her legacy. Her handbags complete a look, making it better, and add a glamour and sophistication that speaks volumes on style and femininity. And that is ultimately what you pay for when you lay down $2000.00 for a Chanel handbag. It's an empowerment that screams "Sheeeeeet, I look so damn good today!".
I cannot, in blog brevity, begin to explain what it is, but I can tell you that when you buy a Chanel replica handbag, you won't be alone when you get that initial feeling of disappointment, and certainly not if you have not seen a real Chanel handbag. I really don't know what that is. It might be that were used to seeing leather look and feel a certain way. It might be that we're used to symmetry and evenness in handbags and that our eyes doth deceive us with asymmetry and what appears to be and on all levels is crookedness (one side of a classic flap handbag always hangs slightly lower than the other side, giving it an appearance of unevenness or crookedness and the feeling of defectiveness).
I really don't know and I cannot tell you, but I can tell you that it is a common stance amongst everyone. I can tell you that if you have any doubts, before you get upset or even before you buy a replica classic flap, go to the Chanel store. I hope you don't get the snotty rep I got and hopefully you can take a look and feel for yourself
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Here is a quote from one of my favourite customers writing a nice little blurb to me today. I had not heard from her since June and I thought she was fuming angry with me for selling her, what she thought, was a crappy bag.
I did show the bag to my grandmother and she said it looks great. I checked out in the Chanel shop as well and they are all shaped not exactly straight. ...It's weird because I seriously thought they had to be totally symmetrically shaped but they're all not. It's really great and kind of you that you did show the picture to the factory rep.I do really appreciate that:) I'm sorry that I thought the bag wasn't well shaped. I did recommend your webpage to my girlfriends:)
This was her replica handbag that I sent to her and her picture! The pronunciation of the bumps (caviar leather) is the lighting.
I can honestly say I was well into my 30's when I opened up the box and started using that real Chanel again for all functions. It wasn't until I was a bit older, had more friends who had Chanel bags (some real some not!) that I came to the same conclusions as my reader from above. What we initially see as imperfections are actually character to the handbag. They make the bag. It is the look that Coco Chanel developed and that Karl Lagerfeld carries on today.
If you have any questions about Chanel Classic Flap bags, ask me. Over the years, I have tried to understand the bags so much that I think I understand them more than I understand most people! Yes, I'm weird that way, but it pays off to know something well enough that you can give honest and open opinions on the matter.
By the way, after years of being a lawyer, I'm no longer that meek, timid, not hoity or toity enough, easily flustered 28 year old girl. I've become so pragmatic and to the point that that snotty sales rep has nothing on me today!
Happy Shopping for Classic Flaps!! Maybe it's time for a sale on these timeless classics??!!??
