Louis Vuitton    Real Talk

To Do or Not to Do: Monogramming Your Bags

I’m a huge fan of this personalized look, are you?

Bags are a highly personal thing. A style that I am obsessed with may not be your cup of tea, and that is just one of the many reasons I am so enamored with bags. I love to hear what you all think about various bags and compare notes on how our opinions differ—it makes it so interesting and there is truly never a dull moment in the PurseBlog community. Another way I love to personalize my bags is to make them instantly recognizable as mine, and by that I mean monogramming them. While many brands offer heat stamps and various ways to personalize your accessories, my favorite is Louis Vuitton’s Mon Monogram. If you’re not familiar with Mon Monogram, it’s a great way of putting your own stamp on your bag. Some of the personalized touches available include hand painted initials, interior canvas lining color, and decorative stripes in a variety of colors.

I find that people either love or hate monogrammed bags. I happen to be a lover of the look, but as a frequent shopper of luxury consignment shops, I’m not always a huge fan of Mon Monogram. Has anyone else seen a pre-owned bag for a great price, only to see someone else’s initials painted right on the front for the world to see? When this happens, whether it be a full on monogram or a tiny heat stamp, I try to figure out how those initials could fit into my life. More often than not, I fall short and can’t even tie the initials to a distant relative, and it always makes me sad to remove the item from my cart. If you are someone who tires of your bags easily and sells them, I would recommend passing on the personalization of your bag. Monogrammed touches make it so much harder to sell on the secondhand market. I’m totally guilty of selling my bags regularly to fund new purchases, which is why I don’t make it a habit to monogram my bags. None of my Louis Vuitton’s are heat stamped or monogrammed except for my precious gem, my Mon Monogrammed Speedy 30. When I fell in love with the look of Mon Monogrammed bags, I grappled back and forth with whether I could justify the price, but I decided to just go for it. With a style as classic as the Speedy, I find comfort in knowing that it will never go out of style. I’m so glad I took the plunge because it is still one of the most treasured bags in my collection a few years later.

When I ordered my Speedy, I decided to go directly to the boutique and select my colors in person, although you can certainly order Mon Monogram items online if you don’t live within the vicinity of a boutique. I love to shop online, but it was better to go in person because I got to see the actual color of the paint that would be on my Speedy. This assured me there would be no color inconsistencies from my laptop screen. In the digital age, I was pleasantly surprised that Louis Vuitton has a large binder of samples that you can thumb through to see what the colors look like. I’m a visual person so this was super vital to my decision process, not to mention my store also had a few items on hand that had been monogrammed for me to look at. This included items such as a passport cover and a Keepall. My sales associate explained to me that the personal touches such as the initials and the stripes on my bag would be hand painted for me in France, which honestly is incredible when you consider the price point. The entire process from the time you place an order to when it’s delivered can be up to 12 weeks, but I was lucky to get mine in a mere 2.5 weeks (and it was delivered on my birthday—how did Louis Vuitton know?!).

Narrowing down the many choices to create my design was a tedious task, but after the help of my patient sales associate and my trusted gut, I ended up ordering my Speedy with my married initials, LP (no dots in between my initials, although that is an option). I chose my favorite colors, fuchsia and vert Clair, for my vertical stripes. The interior canvas of my Speedy is a really pretty turquoise color that matches the vert Clair stripe on the exterior of the bag, and the interior might just be my favorite part of my personalized Speedy. Similar to tattoos, I can seriously see how monogramming my items could become addictive—it is so special to have a Speedy that is adorned with my initials and favorite colors. Every time I pull out my Mon Monogrammed Speedy it brightens my day. The colors are so perfect for bright and cheery weather and I always smile when I look at it.

Personally I think it’s a must to monogram at least one of your accessories. If you agree let us know. You can learn more about the Mon Monogram process here.

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