I am buying a nice handbag on sale for my daughter. Of course I should give a damn.
I merge my fifteen-year-old self into a culture of consumption. I should be ashamed.
I provide my child with the most charged of all female attributes. What is wrong with me?
She has suffered an ugly tackle at lacrosse practice and is struggling with rehabilitation after a serious knee injury. It’s a difficult story with the meniscus, the ligament and a bone chip. Maybe I’m trying to comfort her, maybe I have other intentions.
“To be handbagged†is an expression in British politics, with inspiration from the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she who was known as the Iron Lady. According to the encyclopedia, handbagging involves treating someone inconsiderately and insensitively.
In Sweden, Mona Sahlins created the handbag violent debate before the election in 2010. The party chairman’s accessories came from the luxury brand Louis Vuitton and that was enough for it to be described as a threat to social democracy.
It turned out so little that the bag was a fifty-year present that it had cost 420 euros. Less than some of the male party leader colleagues’ watches, suits, belts and shoes.
A couple of years later it was sold at auction for almost twice as much.
I can’t spend that much money on a handbag, and the present for my daughter only costs a fraction of that amount.
At the same time, in the luxury category, SEK 8,000 is nothing.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper reports on how the exclusive luxury bags attract special leagues in California. A Birkin from the Hermès brand can fetch over SEK 150,000 on the black market. The desire for the bag has only increased since the “Sex and the city†episode from 2001, where the character Samantha tries to round the production line in five years, by state that the order comes from actress Lucy Liu.
Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian all walk around with the Birkin.
The daughter has plowed through the entire “Sex and the city†series during convalescence. One can only hope that it does not create hubbub that leads to the path of crime.
Right now I’m thinking about the tackle and that the handbag is a symbol of revenge.
Read more cheese series, for example Kalena about when a solar eclipse meets grief.
