Prat Tabs (aka designers' logos)

I spent £150 on a Bridge handbag 11 years ago. It is tan leather and I still love it. Used it continuously for 11 years.

Grumppa
Never buy designer glasses what's the point and it's not because there posh it's because there to dam expensive ?

My specs say Cath Kidston on the side.
They were the only frames that fitted properly.

MissFoodLove i meant the company that made your lovely new bag

MissFoodLove thank you, i have just read your post telling me the name.

I'm going to make labels and put them on my clothes thus:

Made by this old woman

From the Charity Shop

Too old to have a label now

Priceless Original

One I made earlier

etc

I made a gemstone necklace as a thank you present to my kind neighbour. I still have some gemstones but they are oddments, leftovers etc. So I looked on Pinterest for necklace ideas. Sharp intake of breath! They had scruffy looking ones I would not make selling for £80!!!
Just going to think up a good designer label for my next necklace....

It's called free advertising, if they want to advertise on my body they can pay me for the privilege

Tillybelle I smiled when I read your post!!

However, it reminded me that you can order woven labels to sew into handmade garments!
Eg Handcrafted with love by Granny
Or even Made by this old Woman if you prefer

When I used to do a lot of crafting, including knitting, I had sew in labels saying: Hand made by Marydoll. In hindsight, a bit pretentious.

DH though a great Christmas present would be to get a stamp made for me to put my name on the back of the greeting cards I used to make.
Unfortunately there was a mistake in it. Hand made by Mad doll. Never a truer word.....

Love it!!

Marydoll

Nothing wrong with that. I think it's ironic that back in the day, buying clothes from catalogues was considered to be something only wealthy people did (at least in North America; I do not know if it was similar in the UK) while handmade clothes were what you wore if you didn't have the money to buy them. Now it's the other way around!

agnurse Catalogue shopping today is quite different from when we were young. Catalogues enabled people to pay in small instalments. the wealthy would have shopped in department stores like Harrods or boutiques.

Interesting and amusing thread! I would not want to keep anything, including bags etc for donkeys years. I get bored with shapes, designs etc in a few years and pass on to charity shops or sell on eBay. Everything gets recycled. Consequently, I would never pay much. I love having a new bag and will use it constantly until it starts to look boring. Then I can start again. It’s the same with clothes. I really don’t want to be wearing an outfit for years and years. As well as the boredom of it, I’d be thinking it must look dated after many years. I always find something nice at TK Maxx or Clarks. Fortunately, I don’t know anyone who would be impressed by expensive or designer stuff. These days, all my family and friends are more into recycling.

Someone put me out of my misery, please! I’m really irritated because I can’t remember the name of the brand that has an alligator logo!

This thread reminded me of the bit in Jaws (which I read shortly after the book first came out) where a parent castigates a teen for hankering after ‘a two dollar shirt with a twenty dollar alligator on it’.

Can’t believe I remembered that after so long!

Lacoste?

That’s it! Thank you Callistemon!

A pp mentioned Chinese people being enamoured of designer labels, perhaps especially bags. I have a Singaporean-Chinese SiL who visits regularly, and usually takes herself to Bicester discount village, which she says is invariably full of coach loads of mainland Chinese tourists. (I’ve read recently that it’s eerily quiet at the moment, no prizes for guessing why.)

SiL will typically buy designer bags, claim the duty back at the airport, and sell most of them on in Singapore, where such things are both sought-after and considerably more expensive.

Sensible lady - probably manages to pay for her holiday by doing that.

Very enterprising.

I am never organised enough to claim anything back at the airport and there is usually a huge queue of people who are more organised than me anyway, waiting to claim their tax back!

Wearing this stuff is the same as using private number plates on your car.

Exactly etheltbags1.

When I lived in China there was a HUGE market in fake designer goods. Identical to the 'real' thing and dirt cheap. The wealthy hated it. How could they effectively display their wealth if a little shop girl had the same shoes and bag to them?

I don't subscribe to the 'real' and 'fake' theory. If it's a bag you can put things in, it's real.

Real designer clothing/ accessories are of a much higher standard than your average high street stuff. The clothing is better cut, the material is superior, etc etc, plus you’re not going to see every other woman in the street wearing it.
That’s why people buy designer items. I’ve quite a few jumpers from Gucci & Vivienne Westwood. They’re gorgeous.

I used to visit a shop in Knightsbridge that sold second hand designer gear.

It was still quite expensive but an Armani trouser suit for £200 was a bargain.

I was also a fan of my fake Rolex and Tag Heuer. They both broke.

#poser.

When Bicester village first opened it was fantastic, we lived about 25 miles away and were regular visitors.

We stopped off to kill time on our way to stay with friends, it was awful.
Most of the outlets were full of second rate goods produced for the outlet.
I saw a bag I quite liked for £250, I realised it was PVU and my leather.

The place however was teeming with Chinese people filling suitcases with their bounty.

It's important for some people to identify with something greater than themselves. These designer clothes are often taken to be signs of wealth and/or good taste so there are people who want to identify with wealth or good taste.

There are subtly unostentatious but expensive brands that don't flaunt, and unostentatious traditional quality is also a social class marker where clothing is concerned.

@miss I've noticed the same in my local outlet.

All the stuff seems to have either been dug up from 10 years ago or very poor quality.