Now’s the time to invest: TVB sales
We want to take this opportunity to shine a light on investment pieces – pieces you can buy now and cherish forever! Because sales include some great deals, this is your opportunity to buy some high-end designer pieces at great prices that might otherwise be above your budget.
Investment pieces to consider
Below you’ll find some of the pieces, we believe, are worth spending the money on – especially when they’re on sale!
Dior Saddle bag
For the serious collector, a Dior Saddle bag is a must-have piece. Either one of the classics, whether vintage or re-released, or one of the special editions that have been made over the years. But what’s the short story of the now iconic bag?
It debuted as part of John Galliano’s Spring/Summer 2000 collection for Dior and was actually the first bag he designed for the esteemed fashion house. It’s named after its shape – the side of a horse's saddle – with the dangling ‘D’ charm resembling the stirrup. The bag was quickly spotted on IT girls like Paris Hilton and made appearances on tv – as always our girl Carrie Bradshaw was ahead of her time.
After Maria Grazia Chiuri started as artistic director for Dior, she’s made an effort to explore what she calls “Dior’s great heritage in accessories”, for example the Saddle bag. This is why she decided to re-release the iconic bag as part of her Fall/Winter 2018 show for the brand. The new Saddle bags are larger in order to accommodate the necessities of today – a larger phone for one.
If you want to read more about Dior and the Dior Saddle bag, have a look at our Dior Bible.
Chanel Flap bags
Chanel is without a doubt mostly known for their Flap bags. But which kind do you want to invest in – a Classic flap, the 2.55 or the 2.55 Reissue?
The flap bag was designed by Coco Chanel in 1929 and was her first design in quilted jersey. At the time it was common for women to clutch their bags in one or both hands, so the first flap bags only had two all-chain straps long enough to grip or loops your wrists through.
Now, let’s quickly run through the differences of some of the different releases!
The 2.55 is named after the month and year of its release and was the first flap bag to feature a full shoulder-length strap. When it was first released it retailed at only $220 – imagine that! If you get your hands on an original 2.55, it will have the Mademoiselle lock (not the CC lock), an all-metal-chain and it will be a double flap. We’ll go through the difference between a single and a double flap below.
The Classic flap bag is very similar to the 2.55 but it does have a few differences. One is the lock. It has the CC lock – added by Karl Lagerfeld in 1984 – instead of the traditional Mademoiselle lock and this goes for all double flap bags. Another noteworthy difference is the chain. The classic flap bags will have a piece of leather woven through the chain strap. The Classic flap is simply named after the fact that it has two flaps. Karl Lagerfeld did however also release the single flap in the 90s which aptly only had one flap – the smaller interior flap was removed and made for a sleeker silhouette. The production of the single flap was discontinued in 2014.
The 2.55 Reissue was issued in 2005 to mark the 50th anniversary of the original 2.55. To distinguish between an original 2.55 and a Reissue, you can look at the innermost flap. The Reissue will have ‘2.55-2005’ stitched between the CC logo. The Reissue 2.55 is designed to be as close to the original design by Coco Chanel and therefore features the Mademoiselle lock once more – these however have ‘CHANEL’ engraved on them as well.
Read more about the iconic fashion house in our Chanel Bible and read THIS to learn more about why investing in especially Chanel is a good idea.
Photo: The Vintage Bar
Fendi Baguette
Another great piece that’s worth every penny is a Fendi Baguette. We’ve done a whole breakdown of the origin of this prime example of a bag HERE, but let’s do a recap.
In the 1990s, the Prada nylon backpack was everywhere – it was a hit with its design and durability. Silvia Venturini Fendi is the daughter of one of the ‘Fendi Five’ and was at the time Fendi’s creative director for accessories. It was therefore bestowed on her to design a bag that could rival the Prada backpack. She was asked to design a minimalist bag and in 1997 she delivered anything but. She was inspired by her grandmother’s collection of beaded bags from the 1920s, so what can you really expect? The Baguette is named after the way it’s carried – tucked right under the arm like the French loaf.
Because of the Baguette, Fendi had a much needed re-launch. Many thought the brand was losing its touch and was quickly becoming irrelevant, but the Baguette turned all of this around. Fendi was the first major fashion house to lend items to Sex and the City, meaning the Baguette got plenty of screentime all through season 3. As you’d expect, this meant a massive rise in popularity for the entire brand.
Fendi briefly discontinued the bag, but with the revival of other classics – the Dior Saddle bag for one – and Fendi brought back the icon as part of its Spring/Summer 2019 Ready-to-Wear show. To mark this joyous event, influencers, top models, actresses and more joined together to tell three different stories of a Fendi Baguette – Sarah Jessica Parker even joined in and reprised her role as Carrie Bradshaw.
Hermès Birkin
This iconic bag was first released in 1984 and is named after another icon – Jane Birkin. Jane Birkin is a highly esteemed actress, singer and model. The bag came about as Hermès Chief Executive Jean-Louis Dumas met Jane Birkin on a flight from London to Paris in 1981. The actress was struggling to get her bag into the overhead compartment and her things ended up falling out. She was carrying a bunch of things as she was a new mother – and it’s one thing to have the baby with you, it’s a completely different thing to remember all the baby’s things. Jean-Louis Dumas was inspired by her struggle and wanted to create a fashionable yet functional bag and the result was the Birkin bag.
The Hermès Birkin bag is an extraordinary piece of work and it takes approximately 48 hours of continuous work to complete a single bag. This bag is craftsmanship at its best.
What is Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Our biggest sales of the year is our Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales. But why do we do it? For those interested, you’ll be able to find a bit of information about the controversial ‘holiday’ below.
Most people know the “holiday” as a day with crazy discounts and videos on social media of people rushing through doors to get their hands on cheap items. But what is the origin of Black Friday really?
Black Friday is the term for the first Friday after the American Thanksgiving, which is on the fourth Thursday in November – still keeping up? Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, which is why many stores – both online and physical – offer large discounts on many items.
Only taking America into consideration, Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005!
Some stores and boutiques choose to extend their Black Friday sales into Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is the Monday following Black Friday meaning that shoppers get an additional three days to shop amazing deals! Cyber Monday was started because retailers started to see a pattern in consumer behavior – many shoppers were simply too busy to shop on Black Friday and on the weekend and instead opted to shop online on the following Monday.
Today, Cyber Week is also a thing. This means that you can get Cyber Monday deals for an entire week. What a great time to get all your Christmas shopping done.
