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We don’t have the luxury of calling our bags luxury handbags. But then what is the difference between our leather bags and “designer” leather bags? What is a luxury bag or a designer bag, really? Let’s look at our immediate associations when we think about this concept:
Myth: Most designer handbags are European
When we think about designer handbags, we instantly think of an Italian fashion power house, but studies show that out of 10 most popular handbag designers only 3 are based in Europe and the rest are American, with Coach, a native brand to the United States, taking the first place as the most searched for brand globally.
And even the bags that are offered by European designers are not necessarily made in Europe. Getting a “made in Italy” tag requires that the majority of the production costs be purchased within Italian borders and it doesn’t guarantee that manufacturing wasn’t outsourced to other countries.
Prada Group, which owns Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s Shoes, and Car Shoe, famously admitted that they outsource about 20% of their manufacturing to China and other locations abroad. Miuccia Prada, chief designer for Prada and Miu Miu, said in an interview, “sooner or later, it will happen to everyone because [Chinese manufacturing] is so good.” An emotion seconded by the aforementioned Coach, Longchamp, Mulberry and Marc Jacobs, who also admits to outsourcing production, mainly to Asia.
Time Resistance – the materials and make are 100% Italian. The finished product then arrives to Lithuania and it’s stocked, sold and shipped off from here.
Myth: Designer handbags are handmade
We suppose that the quality (and the price) of a luxury handbag is justified because a fabulous Italian man in a crispy clean white coat spent days making it by hand, paying attention to the slightest detail and lining up every stich to geometrical perfection. And it is true that most brands employ craftsmen who have undergone years of training and there are handmade elements in the production of their bags. However, sewing machines are used for many aspects of production because they are “more secure and necessary for strength, accuracy and durability.”
So the manufacturing of designer handbags employs a mix of handmade and industrialized and it is hard to tell exactly how much work was done by hand.
Time Resistance – also a combination of handcraft and machine sewing.
Myth: You get what you pay for
The sad but simple truth is that the “more expensive” doesn’t mean “higher quality”.
In fact, the luxury handbag industry enjoys some of the highest profit margins in the fashion world. And as we all suspect, that markup comes from luxury banding and the idea of exclusivity even though the product itself is arguably not much different than any other handbag.
Time Resistance – we are driven by the idea that quality leather bags should be affordable and therefore our price margins are low(er than they ought to be) compared to other similar brands.
