FLEETING FANCIES

During our recent Midwest Odyssey, I was thrilled when Mickie reminded me that an Outlet Mall had recently popped up near Oklahoma City.  I sometimes find such malls to be a bit of a hit or miss, but the mood was right and I had a wonderful time.

We shopped store after store, picking up a little here and a little there, until I spotted the Coach store.  Now, I've never purchased a "luxury" purse...oh, excuse me...a "luxury" bag, but this was a different day and I was extremely eager to become a classic and timeless sort of person, so I entered the doors with purpose and began to browse with intent.

Within minutes, I'd found the inner sanctum where everything was marked down 15%, and huge signs advertised an additional 50% off the already 15%.   Mickie was waving an additional 20% off coupon. At this point, I became even more intent, and homed in on a black & gray backpack style bag.  I'm a sucker for backpacks, and as I quickly figured the 15% plus the 50% then added on the 20%...I knew it was MY bag.  I showed it to Mickie.  She liked it.  I liked it.  The sales girl liked it.  The cashier liked it.  I handed over my credit card, quickly grabbed the shopping bag and raced to the car, where I cleared out my shabby Target straw purse, loaded up the Coach backpack bag, slung it over my shoulder and immediately became a self-confident, fun-loving person, exuding class and wealth to everyone in the parking lot.  If only I'd had a better haircut, I would have been unstoppable.

This morning, a mere three weeks later, I was slumped over the breakfast bar eating low-calorie peanut butter on low-calorie toast when I opened the "Personal Journal" section of the Wall Street Journal.  The Page 3 headline jumped out at me:  "Coach Comes Around to Reclaim Its Iconic Look."  Hmm, what's this about?  "Coach is calling its Legacy Collection a shot at reinventing old Coach...burnished cowhide...turnlock closures...one small logo..."  Wait!  One...small...logo.  One SMALL logo?  ONE small logo?!?  Suddenly, my confidence, my class, my newly found fun-loving self melted right off my body, slid over the edge of the counter and splashed onto the floor.  This was not going to be a good morning.

Paragraph by paragraph it got worse:  "After a 15-year..." (15 years?  Where was I!) "...affair with lightweight PVC bags covered in Cs...  (Well, that solves my not-so-slight concern when, after some examination, I feared I had bought a plastic Coach bag.  I had!) "...Coach is bringing back the styles that made it...one of the most beloved bag makers in the world."  Well, damn!   

Just FYI..."Legacy" will be Coach's primary collection, but, please, don't confuse it with "Classic" (available on the website but not marketed), or "Vintage" (available at flea markets nationwide but at ever-increasing prices).  Bloomingdales will begin displaying the new Legacy collection within weeks and find it to be "...very fashion-forward and very fashion-right for right now..."

I know this isn't pleasant, but you need to know that during the recent financial crisis, "trendy" young women "turned up their noses at new Coach."   And, "Coach executives watched their sales of logo bags fall..."    Now really, could they have texted and let us know?  Or, that Jessie Holeva (budget-ista fashion blogger) "loves" Legacy because it's "not all logo-ed up".  Well, thanks for sharing that with all of us, Jessie!

 Fortunately or not, the final paragraph provided some shred of hope when Coach's Creative Director told us that this may simply be a cycle, and he's hedging his bets.  Legacy bags emblazoned with logos will be sold at "select" stores where women "retain" a preference for logos.  Now, I don't mean to be excessively sensitive, but after half a page of very small print, I have a feeling that women who "retain" a preference for logos might live in neighborhoods we wouldn't even  drive into. "Select" stores, my foot!