Louis Vuitton

If you know me well enough you know how much I ADORE Louis Vuitton. I have had two small clutches to call my own and I'm very proud of it. I don't like LV because it's "popular" (if you can even call it that) or because everyone in the world once a piece of it. I like it because I like it and that's all there is to it. I can appreciate the immaculate quality (which is why I refuse to buy fake...which is tacky anyway) and I'm always anxious to see the new collections they come out with.

The reason for this post is to say that Japan has been making me one happy girl because there is LV Everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. The Japanese have a very high standard for quality and they love designer everything here. Just about everyone seems to have something or other LV and it's great. The area where I live is also swamped with consignment (secondhand) shops. Can you see where I'm going with this? Okay...while in Japan I can significantly increase my Louis Vuitton collection at a FRACTION of the price of paying retail because of all the secondhand stores around here. There are these big chain stores called Hard Off that are always guaranteed to be chock-full of designer anything all behind glass cases. There are also the smaller consignment boutiques just about everywhere you look and all these places have LV coming out their ears. I can get $1,800 bags for $300 and $400...sometimes cheaper but the better the deal the more used the bags are. I saw a giant Keepall 60 (a big duffle bag) that probably goes for about $1,300 for $250. Granted, it was very, very, very used...the leather was incredibly dark but it was still in good working condition. If it's still there in a few paychecks I was thinking about getting it. My goal before leaving Japan is to aquire maybe three or four used bags and maybe, just maybe, for a going away present for myself I'll walk into the store in Takamatsu and buy something brand new.

Just a side note...I guess when you resell your used LV (or any other designer items) to places like Hard Off they give you crap for it. An office worker at one of my schools told me she used to have tons of LV but had to sell it to consignment. She said she had about $10,000 worth of it and they gave her under $2,000. Now I'm not sure how consignment works from the selling end but that sounds terrible to me...maybe it's normal...I really don't know.