If I confessed to buying this Gucci jacket for $3,500 you might be horrified, but you might also feel envious and a little impressed.

It’s so cute! It’s sporty but luxurious, classic but quirky, it’s ineffably Gucci.

Actually it’s a cheap $35 fake that’s available at my local mall, in a shop that appears to cater to prostitutes and would-be prostitutes. Everything is sparkly and hideous, in a good way.

So now you’re probably disgusted by this jacket because, ew, it’s not real Gucci, it’s just worthless crap.

See how you are?

Here’s the real Gucci:

Why is it worth $3,465 more?

You could say it’s the quality but we know that’s not true.

In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence.

—?Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1934 ed.), p. 36

Our clothes are still signifiers of wealth and class, even though any idiot with a credit card can own high-end consumer goods. And yet Gucci continues to exert its allure even though I know intellectually it’s just an overpriced brand with a brilliant ‘aspirational’ marketing campaign.

A million street-style pictures of girls decked out in Gucci have not been sufficient to ruin the allure, but it could happen.

I once longed for Chanel, and now it’s dead to me.

Is it better to want Gucci than to want Yeezy? Do brands have to matter? Don’t we know better?

Let me put it another way: Would you rather carry your shit in a paper bag than a bag by Michael Kors?

I hope we can all agree on that one!

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You know how people always want to find the silver lining of an awful situation, like “The Gift Of Cancer”?

In that spirit, I’ve figured out how to make the most of the Disney World Alligator Tragedy, or DRAT for short.

They cut open five alligators while looking for the missing toddler, only to find out later that he wasn’t eaten.

Instead of wasting those alligators, how about a limited edition Disney World Commemorative Bag?

The beautiful hand-crafted bags, made of genuine Orlando alligator skin, will be numbered  and embossed with the Disney World logo, and will feature a resin baby-head clasp modeled on a classic Kewpie Doll.

The DRAT Bag will come with a certificate of authenticity,  and 5% of the purchase price will go to PETA.

It’s a win-win.

Show how much you care by investing in this gorgeous bag! Because hashtag PrayForOrlando won’t help anyone, human or animal.

We traveled to another state for a family visit and it was an experience rich with epiphanies. Here are the ones I can remember:

1. I have zero fear of flying and no anxiety about things going wrong. I sat next to the window and enjoyed being up in the clouds. I realized that I didn’t care about the plane crashing; it was a genuine feeling of ‘So what? No problem.’ I’m aware this may not be normal thinking but it is incredibly liberating.

2. I don’t need a green crocodile handbag by Nancy Gonzalez. I have viewed this item as the holy grail of consumer goods for a long time. Don’t ask why. I planned to buy one when some nebulous project made me a million dollars. I went to look at one and when I touched it, I felt no surge of longing or quickening heartbeat, and certainly no spark of joy. Poof, the spell was broken! This frees up at least $3,000 of imaginary future money.

3. I really do wear a 32C and and not a 34B. The last time some bra lady told me to switch sizes, I refused to take her up on it. A nice, more persuasive bra lady named Vicky convinced me to make the change. It was almost like accepting Jesus into my heart only it was Vicky. Thanks, girl!

4. I am emotionally better off when deprived of media. A few days without TV or internet can tamp down one’s everyday sense of rage. One day back at home and I’m ready to fucking explode at that stupid bitch who won’t let same-sex people get married. Why do we have her?? Take her away!

5. Ice cream is more important than any other type of food. Keep your fancy entrees and give me ice cream instead.

6. Coming home from somewhere else is deeply satisfying. I love my own bed and it loves me. Even though we discovered a plumbing leak that may be catastrophic, home is where you can do what you want, where all your shit is, like your Waterpik thing and your skin products. Home is your sanctuary.

Oh and here’s one more, but this is more like a life lesson or general wisdom: If you break your baby toe, someone’s going to try to run over it with a shopping cart, and they will eventually succeed.

No. No no no no no.

Make a bag shaped like a boombox if you must, Moschino, but not this big. Is the joke, ‘Haha, you can’t even get it into a car?’

Or just, ‘Haha, you bought this!’

I like the words ‘spacious’ and ‘roomy’ in the description.

At $3,195, there are only 2 left!

Jeremy Scott must think he’s Andy Warhol. Can someone fire this cunt?

First of all, that Hermes lady is fucking nuts about her photos. She doesn’t want her photos used to mock her. They are there for praise only! They are there for gloating, not for you internet people to copy and ridicule. I found this picture on flickr, Hermes Lady, so relax.

I wasn’t able to force myself to go through 30something pages of her boasting about her Hermes purchases and the attendant ass-kissing. But I think I got the gist of it.

Here is the situation. Hermes is a symbol of wealth and success. Nothing more or less. A woman who spends a fortune at Hermes and then documents it online is a person desperately in need of love and self-esteem. There isn’t enough Hermes in the whole world to assure her of her intrinsic worth.   It’s a mug’s game.

Consumption at this level is very sad. All shopping is a defense against the knowledge of our mortality. It’s a stupid distraction that exists to enrich corporations and to numb the appetites of the soul.

Look in your closet and think about which outfits would make you happy if a family member died in a car crash. Look at your shoes and then look at this picture.

The Hermes Lady is a picture of insecurity, distorted by money and self-delusion. She is a waste of our time. Turn your eyes away from that lady and her ridiculous merchandise.

You already have everything you need to be happy.

Don’t worry about shoes or handbags. Listen to music, look at some art or have sex instead. You’ll thank me later.

This Hermes Birkin bag is available at 1st dibs for $85,000. Can we figure out why?

You could get this pink one for only $65,ooo.   That’s a whopping savings of $20,ooo. But maybe you’d feel like a cheapskate if you bought the pink one.   Why quibble about $20,000 when you’re shopping at this level? Grey Himalayan Crocodile says you really care. It says “Classy!”

But!

You could have this blue one for only $12,500! With your savings, you could buy a luxury car or feed all the orphans in Haiti. But now the blue one looks like crap, right? Who wants a crap Birkin bag?

I’d love to hear women justifying the purchase of a Birkin bag, or any bag that telegraphs wealth. “It’s so iconic!” “It’s an investment!” “I’ve always wanted one!”

The only honest explanation is that some consumer goods signify status to other consumers. Other women will admire and envy your wealth, or so you think.

How much of an asshole do you have to be to buy one of these stupid bags?!? It’s almost unfathomable. The only people who would be impressed would be other assholes. If Louis Vuitton made bags that didn’t look like Louis Vuitton bags, would anyone buy them?

From now on, when you see someone wearing anything with a big, high-end logo, point at them and laugh, “HAHAHA, Chanel!” (or Prada, YSL, Dior, whatever.)

Sister Wolf Says:   Even a tiny act of subversiveness can brighten your day.

I can’t understand anti-monarchist sentiments, when the Queen of England has given us all so much pleasure. I first fell for her in 1982, when some guy broke into her bedroom at Buckingham Palace, and she calmly spoke to him for ten minutes until someone came in and rescued her. What a mensch, or whatever you call a woman who can handle shit like this without getting ruffled!

I also like how she won’t let go of her handbag. This is a woman whose handbag will never, ever be sat upon by some fat bitch at a dinner party. People always like to wonder what she keeps in her bag, but I couldn’t care less. I’d rather know what brand she likes, besides Launer.   As we all know, Lady Di loved Lana Marx bags, and who wouldn’t??

My brother-in-law received an OBE or MBE from the Queen, who pinned a medal to his coat (unless I dreamt that part…he did show me the medal in its special box, though.) So that makes me feel close to her. Her husband is a different story. Why does he look like a Nazi war criminal? Not that he isn’t a fun person in his own right; here is a list of some of his famous   gaffes, which tend to be racist in nature. One can only imagine what he said to Her Majesty after their meeting with the Obama’s.

I like to think she gave him a little smack and replied, “Oh Philip, don’t be a cunt!”

Imagine how thrilled I was to see the metallic green Marni bag on the left for $1,815 at net-a-porter! It reminded me of my metallic green Not Rational handbag that I got on sale for $75, because no one was stupid enough to pay the original price of $550. I bought it at a swanky store called Traffic. I think I squealed something like “Oh god, what an offensive color!”   I meant it in a good way.

After I paid for it, the sales assistant offered to keep an eye out for other offensive bags. I said “Sure,” because it was easier than explaining the difference between Good Offensive and regular offensive.

I have never used this bag, which normally hangs from my tailor’s dummy when it isn’t posing gracefully on the commode. On its other side it has two pockets with snaps. It is incredibly soft. I don’t expect to put it into play.

If you’ve ever saved a lot of money by shopping for something you will never wear, let’s hear about it!

None of us like Handbag Snobbery (unless we are the ones disparaging someone else’s choice of handbag.) I don’t even like it when a person praises my handbag, for god sake. When Susie B wrote about suffering the disdainful gaze of two awful Handbag Snobs on a train, my heart went out to her.   I should start making little badges that say “Please don’t stare at my handbag.”

It’s a difficult situation if you care about style and fashion. I love my bags for being both beautiful and expensive. I love them for being not the ones that are obvious and popular. But on some occasions, I don’t want the burden of my enormous handbag. So I pack my essentials into a bag that I selected for it’s stomach-turning ugliness.

Check out its ugly features. The flower thing made out of a zipper, the studded wristlet, the gold handcuff things dangling there for no reason, and the purple plastic that is actually transparent even though you can’t tell from the picture. It is eight X five inches of pure eyesore.   All that for $11.

And speaking of eyesore, today at the mall I walked past a shoe-store window and was assaulted by a vision from hell itself: Gladiator sandals in a rainbow of awful colors, signifying to me that gladiators have not only jumped the shark, they have eaten and regurgitated the shark. Behold the wares of Shiekh shoes.

Sometimes the Holy Grail reveals itself when you’re just screwing around on the internet. That’s how I discovered Natalia Brilli, a designer whose fetishistic handbags and accessories are  inspirational works of art.   Why won’t someone buy me her deer-head purse, when I so obviously deserve it??