Regular readers may notice that I have….erm….quite a few bags. I have a constant turnover but the favourites I always keep.
The ways I get rid of handbags I don’t want are:
- My daughter learned a deep love of handbags from me so she gets all my old Francesco Biasia, Juicy, Furla and Lush bags plus any other cheaper ones she wants. She has one Louis Vuitton from me and often borrows bags from me.
- I have a second hand shop where I sell on consignment. They sell all my vintage ones from the 50s and 60s almost before they are on the shelves and then each season they tell me what colour will be selling and I take suitable bags in. They take quite high commission but the shop does extremely well so things go fast and they take care of all the admin for me. The shop is the best secondhand shop in Stockholm and is called Judits.
- I have sold to colleagues, students, neighbours and twice to people in the street who absolutely had to have whatever bag I was using. One was a leather miniskirt I had turned into a tote and so it was one of a kind. The other one was this one – I had bought at an Indian market and didn’t particularly like it
I sell on Blocket.se – a Swedish bulletin board where you can sell things at a price you set. Once someone has bought something from me they tend to keep in touch so then I can offer them others I don’t want.
I sometimes have bag parties where all my ‘faithful followers’ can come and look at the bags I would like to be rid of and either buy or swap.
I use consignment sites to swap and sell as well as Facebook groups and eBay.
For many years (2000 – 2008) I used to be the senior moderator for fashion and beauty on the Handbag.com (how apt!) discussion forums and there were were allowed to sell and then when selling was banned we could swap so I did it that way too.
Do I ever regret selling a bag?
Yes it does happen – about ten percent of the time. There is one beautiful Francesco Biasia that I gave to someone and regretted it immediately. She uses it all the time so every time I see it, I have a small pang of regret but she loves it and I can still see it so I try not to brood. I also sold a gorgeous Mulberry Jacquetta that enabled me to buy my large TSM Balloon and that one I have deeply regretted.