Marc Jacobs is known for interspersing his relatively staid accessories line with a little dose of crazy every season, but usually I can at least find the good-natured humor in his aesthetic wanderings. I’m not laughing this time, though – it looks like this bag has fallen ill with a terrible case of the tassel pox, a sickness from which I’m afraid it won’t recover.

We all knew that this bag was coming because of its inclusion in Marc’s Spring/Summer 2010 show, but much like the rather lamentable parachute bags from the same collection, I was hoping that the manufacturer would somehow lose the order and they would never see the light of day. Sadly, they managed to make the leap from runway to retail.

The whole thing is just too fussy – tassels, grommets, quilts galore. What’s missing is a real sense of design and concept, which is something of which I don’t often accuse the brilliant Mr. Jacobs. I merely hope that these bags hit the sale bin soon so that I can stop looking at them on my favorite retailers’ websites. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $2500.

Sadly, the Versace Gree Shopper could not be a more apt example of why that is. Gaudy metallic? Check. Logos galore? Check. No leather to be found? Check. Astronomical price for a canvas tote? You better believe it.

Sadly, bags of this variety are the rule and not the exception at Versace. To me, they look like they’d best find an audience if they were sold in the juniors department at a mid-range department store for a drastically reduced price, but XOXO already has the corner on that market.

The stupid thing isn’t even attractive, and that irritates me. Versace could be a brand that makes fabulous, luxurious things, but instead they choose to make gold canvas totes and charge a stack and a half for them. Then they wonder why their business is in serious financial trouble, and bags like this make it difficult me to feel sorry for them. They do it to themselves. Buy through Nordstrom for $1425.

Can someone, ANYONE, explain to me why this pastel-potholder-looking abomination against fashion costs 1100 freaking dollars?

Well, the line is owned by part of the Fendi family, so that should give you a clue to the price. And the bags are handmade from recycled materials, which is nice, but not really an explanation of how much we’re all expected to pay for them. I’m pretty sure that lots of small brands use similar manufacturing practices, make bags that don’t look like granny craft projects, and don’t charge nearly as much for the (much more attractive) end result.

As if the whole “green” factor wasn’t enough to make me feel slightly bad for hating this bag in such a visceral way, apparently they also donate some proceeds to charity. But when you’re making bags that are this ugly and this expensive, are you really doing anyone but yourself any favors? Wouldn’t more attractive bags at a slightly lower price point sell more units and, as a result, make more money for charity and do more to make the “green” movement seem palatable to fashionphiles? For $1100, I’m going to need them to do more than make a bag that looks like an irregular Vera Bradley laptop tote that got sent to TJ Maxx. Buy through Luisa Via Roma for $1131.

I’ve got to say at least one nice thing about this bag: Dolce & Gabbana, I like your enthusiasm.

No, actually, I love it. Because the kind of chutzpah it takes to put together seven (that I can count) types of fuzzy animal print onto one bag is the kind of chutzpah that it takes to occasionally create a stinkin’ awesome bag. But at this point, ladies and gentlemen, I have but one caveat: the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Martini Flap Bag is not that bag.

Oddly enough, I think that what this bag suffers from the most is not that there are too many patterns, but that all of the patterns are too similar. Instead of creating contrast and visual interest, they all sort of meld together into one big tan animal print glob, and the result is decidedly “craft store.”

Not that it would have been any better had they added in, say, zebra print or snake print. This idea was more or less dead in the water from the get-go, but if it takes making a thousand ridiculous bags to finally get to one that’s genuinely great, then I’m okay with that. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Buy through Nordstrom for $1075.

But, for some reason, I’m having trouble coming up with my normal level of self-righteous rage over the Marni Alpaca Tote. It’s not that I like it, because I don’t think I do, but could it be that it’s just not quite as bad as the average fur bag, while still being substantially worse than the average non-fur bag?

I think that maybe my low-level of disdain for this bag is because not only does the fur have some interesting texture variation to it, but the bag actually appears to have a bit of a shape. Instead of being a uniformly colored and textured puffball, it actually looks rather bag-like. Which isn’t high praise under normal circumstances, but it probably puts it at the top of the fur bag rankings.

And maybe it’s because Marni is a brand that has a very quirky, nontraditional style to it that I don’t hate that they made a fur bag. I’m not sure. I still wouldn’t wear it, but I could imagine someone pulling it off reasonably well in a very cold climate. I’ve seen worse, that’s for sure. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $2440.

And when I woke up today and saw the Fendi Skunk Fur Peekaboo Bag sitting in the New Arrivals section of Saks, I knew that today was going to be a good day.

Ladies and gents, posts about these kinds of bags are my favorite to write. This bag is so terrifically awful that the words almost come too easily. Not only is it one of those puffball, shapeless fur bags that are so unfashionable, but it’s made out of a skunk. SKUNK.

What exactly is it about a skunk that says “luxurious” or “aspirational?” I don’t have a single positive association with the word, except for maybe Pepe Le Pew, the Frenchie cartoon skunk of my childhood, and I don’t want to see him made into a bag. And for anyone that has never smelled one of these things…the only way I can describe it is a combination of rotten eggs and hot garbage. Why anyone would want to be seen in public swinging a dead one from her arm is beyond my admittedly feeble levels of comprehension.

Even if the fur is soft, I can’t imagine it being a top seller. Maybe they don’t have skunks in Italy, and the designers were unfamiliar with how the animals smell before their pelts are removed and shipped to them. I don’t know, but it’s a smell that makes dogs sad, and dogs like to sniff all kinds of terrible things. I suppose that “terrible” is really the only way to describe this, after all. Buy through Saks for $1970.

But there’s also usually a problem with creating eccentricity for its own sake, which appears to be what was done with the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Charleston Chain Flap Bag. And I think we can all tell that it didn’t work out particularly well.

The best fashion trends come from the cool kids. And I’m not talking about the popular kids in high school – I mean the kids that looked different, that wore things you’d never think of wearing, and that are authentically cool despite doing precisely what they felt like. They existed in a universe that was sort of parallel to the normal popularity structure, and they probably will for the rest of their lives. Many of those girls go on to be “fashion people.” They’re tastemakers, it’s part of their personality. They’re the reason that Alexander Wang is selling handbags hand over fist right now.

But instead of embracing trends that come organically from people that are cool enough to make trends, Dolce & Gabbana appears to have simply decided to make something weird for the sake of being weird, which doesn’t really work. I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but I think I could actually make this bag myself, given the proper tools. All it appears to be is woven grosgrain ribbon (the weaving isn’t even particularly straight) and some beads stuck in the chain, and perhaps it’s presumptuous of me to think that I could recreate it, but I don’t really see why I couldn’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. But rest assured, if I did, I wouldn’t charge anyone $2600 for it. Buy through Nordstrom for $2595.

Sometimes we get caught up in our work that we forget to take a minute to step back and take it all in…

The members of Purse Forum brought this handbag to our attention and we can not stop laughing. FAIL blog does it again and brings us a major FAIL in our own realm.

What happened when the designer of this purse was hard at work? Were the measurements off, the pattern flawed, or was it just a major FAIL. It doesn’t take more than one look to check out this handbag and see anything other than, well, what you see. Thank you for the mid-week laugh.

[via FAIL Blog]

Pursebloggers, I am confused by the Barneys New York Chic Chain Bag on a few levels.

First, I’m confused that Barneys really makes house-brand bags. Of course, I knew on a factual level that they did, but really? Do luxury goods customers want house brands? Even if the house is a good house? I can’t imagine anyone looking to spend a large amount of money on a bag would look first to something not even made by a proper design house. As much as I like buying supermarket-brand milk and cheese at the grocery store (it’s the same stuff! Cheaper!), I would never do the same with money that I saved up to by something special and luxurious.

Second, BURLAP?? EVENING BAG? Did those two concepts just collide on one handbag? Couldn’t someone at Barney’s marketing department come up with a slightly more fashionable word for the material? Burlap’s really all they’ve got? Asking all these questions is starting to make me dizzy and more than a little annoyed. But they have to be asked, because this makes no sense.

Lastly, $950?!?!?!?!?! For a BURLAP EVENING BAG? If Megs and Vlad would allow me to cuss, this is where it would be happening. I find myself offended at the implication that anyone should be spending $950 on anything made out of something that’s widely regarded as packing material. And I think I need a cocktail. Buy through Barneys for $950

The holes at the top corners are the eyes, and the top flap is the same shape as a frog’s upper lip, with one of the bag’s folds forming the lower lip. If it was green, it would be Kermit. And perhaps it would be better if it was, because it’s not doing a very good job of being a handbag. I can’t recall another bag that has left me so utterly confused as to what the designer was trying to accomplish. The body of the bag has a set of drawstrings running down each side and little loops hanging out the bottom, although I can’t see any way to hold the drawstrings in place if you wanted to scrunch up the bag. And why would you? That would just make it awkward to carry and give the inside of the bag lots of folds inside which your stuff could hide, never to be seen again. Plus, it looks like an amphibian. I’ll pass. Buy through Saks for $1595.