For two years, in San Francisco, I proudly carried a purse that I found in the trash. And I got compliments on it.
Normally I walk around Moscow saying, "Seriously Moscow?" to the mullets and the head-to-toe-leopard. You know your perceptions are changing when the $160 fur wristlets at Max Mara don't seem all that ourageous. I mean, that's worth it, right? Or should just I just buy two fox tails for $5 at Ismilova market and make my own? My thoughts about fur are totally twisted now, by the way. I try not to eat meat every day, but hey, fur, it's warm. In the store–I can't believe my luck! I find an adorable made-in-France-Repetto-bag at more than 75% off that makes me swoon. (If at least one article of clothing isn't patent leather right now–boots, shoes, bag, headband, corset-under-your-mink, whatever–you look like something is wrong with you.) I will be the girl with the huge super-soft-black-patent-leather-with-all-these-clever-ties Repetto bag, eeeeeeeeeee! And it's not so over-the-top that I can't look semi-normal in California next month. Then I stood behind this woman to pay.
Okay, her boots are extra-cute, her all-navy ensemble is cool, but um, did you notice her bag? I did. I noticed the Hermes seal in gold when she pulled out 40K rubles in cash for her purchase. On ebay, right now? That pink ostrich Birkin is selling for $20K used. She bought a Christian Lacroix bag, which they put in a gorgeous embroidered dust bag and then in a box, and then in another bag. And the 40K rubles she paid? It's like $1000 plus change. Maybe she'll use the Lacroix as a trash bag? I dunno. Made me and my poor little originally $500 Repetto purse (no dust-bag, no box) feel…bohemian. Maybe I should use it to line a bird cage. And then throw it in the trash and dig it back out because it is so cute.
I wish I knew where pink-ostrich-Hermes-bag-lady's garbage was.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
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