Hello, Leo!

I know it’s still below freezing for some of you, but all the stores are in full Spring mode these days. In fact, I sneaked out for a bit to view the Chanel 2011 Printemps trunk show today and thought I’d blog about it while the images are still fresh in my mind. Now, I have to say I’ve been dying to see the flap bags with the lion clasps in person after having seen a few photos on the Internet. And sure enough, there was a medium black chevron flap with the silver lion today. You didn’t see me write medium black chevron flap with the silver lion like that or in all caps because I was, well, a bit underwhelmed (next four photos courtesy of a sales associate)…

It didn’t look like a wow bag. I adored how the turnlock was inside the lion’s mouth, but the lion itself didn’t seem to be as sturdy or well made as the one on my flaps from a few seasons before. Sigh. Plus this store only bought the leo flaps in black. Double sigh. The evening flat clutch version, which was done in the classic diamond quilting and not chevron was even more hohum. Make that a triple sigh.

I saw the caviar flaps and reissues in various colors. The pale gold (matte metallic) lambskin jumbo was a bit yummy but not delicious enough to get on my buy list.

And I don’t know what was wrong but I did not love the leather on the new 2.55 (reissue) flaps. And that highly anticipated Chain Me collection that’s supposed to seduce us after the very popular Chain Around collection? Loved the design, but hated the leather…the leather looked like vinyl. Was it vinyl??

Everything was just…meh.

But then I turned around and saw a white bag locked inside the glass case.

I swear to you I’m not smoking anything funny for recreational or medical purposes, but I thought this bag sprouted arms that reached out for my embrace. Take me home, now! So I had to take a closer look which revealed that it will retail for $7800. Ouch. Those imaginary arms? I’m going to need the extra hands that come with them to rob a bank to fund this little number! But holy Chanel, Batman, it’s an extraordinary bag. White lambskin–can we please get any more high maintenance?–with black lace/paillettes embroidered in a garden labyrinth pattern. Remember that crazy expensive black dress I contemplated a few blog entries ago? Wouldn’t it look fab with this purse? I could pay for one year of your kid’s private tuition with that combo! I’ll definitely have to be smoking something to justify buying this bag.

Anyway, so basically the bags from the trunk show left me deflated. I can honestly say only that garden bag and the electric blue messenger bag (with a cool adjustable chain) in my first photo made any kind of impression on me. I’m happy to have the bags in my current collection and don’t see adding on to it with anything from the spring collection.

That’s what I told myself anyway, until I walked over to another store’s Chanel boutique and ran into the silver version of the clutch…

Hello, Leo! How you doin’!

February 9, 2011