A Guy's Take on Women's Passion For Designer Bags

I am writing this as guy who cannot understand women's fascination with handbags. Handbags are about as foreign to most of us men as it gets. Women pack them full of stuff they don't need and then lug them around wherever they go. The kind of bag they like seems to change from day to day. They are thrilled to find cheap handbags at half off, but then spend small fortunes on designer bags. If we buy them one as a gift, it'll inevitably be returned. And they seem to reject anything that's practical and actually works. Go figure.

Being the warm, sophisticated, caring male I am, this appalling lack of understanding of what handbags, purses, clutches, satchels and hobos are and why they are so vitally important really bothered me. So I poked around the web in the hope of educating myself and learning the secrets of handbags. Not so much the run of the mill stuff, but the designer purses and designer handbags women seem so crazy about. What I found is an amazing world of information and knowledge that I never knew existed. Yes, there are places as enthusiastic about designer bags as us guys are about important stuff like football, golf and video games.

From what I can tell, luxury handbags from famous designers are for women what things like titanium drivers, custom wheels or big screen TVs are for us. They discuss them endlessly and in great detail. They can make them look and feel good. They can boost morale or even help get a job. They can help them fit in or set themselves apart. And no woman would want to be caught dead with the wrong bag. It's that important. I found that there are designer brand names that women find hot and exciting, like Gucci, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dooney and Bourke, and Burberry. I can truly say that I never heard of them other than perhaps Gucci, and I thought those guys just made shoes.

As is, it's apparently hard work for women to keep up with all that designer stuff. If evening purses or leather handbags with designer labels on them can cost a small fortune, you want to know what's in and what's not. Or when it's acceptable to get replicas instead of the real thing (which is a good because I sure can't tell them apart). So there are websites that contain more information about handbags than I ever thought possible. There are about a million different styles and each style has its own rules. The designers apparently come out with new stuff very frequently, and women need to know what's cool and what you really, really need to stay away from.

Women, of course, communicate much better and much more eloquently than we do, and so there are handbag blogs and forums and discussion groups to analyze, critique, and describe absolutely everything about designer bags. That is vital information because they cost so much that women need to know where to go for the best deals and where they can safe some money.

I know I am writing this tongue in cheek, but I must say I was impressed with how much good information I found. As a guy I can relate to needing to know absolutely everything about things I care about, and if women are passionate about designer bags instead of power tools and mag wheels, that's what makes us different and special.