It doesn’t seem to matter how much or how little I spend on handbags, but none of them ever seem to last. A $250 Kate Spade crossbody bag that my friend got me as a maid of honor gift lasted about 4.5 years before I had to discard it, as the strap, the zippers, and all the edges started to fray and come undone, not to mention all the scratches that had accumulated all over it. I’m usually very careful with my bags, yet these things tend to happen over time. The $70 discounted leather bag (which was supposed to be over double that cost) I bought through Rue La La (a discounted designer items website) that I’ve used heavily over the last two years now has a handle that is on the edge of breaking, and there’s really no way to easily repair it. It would just need to be thrown out.

Then, there’s the Lo & Sons OMG (overnight / medium / gym) bag that I got just over two years ago, which is actually still in good condition despite all the travel I’ve done with it, but the strap has started to unravel. I emailed the company to ask if there was a way to have this repaired, but they said they had no process in place to have that done, so instead, they’d just send me a brand new replacement bag. Really — a completely new bag, just like that?

It gave me doubts about how much I probably overpaid for this bag in the first place given that they were so quick to offer me a free bag just like that. All these things are cheaply made, in China no less with cheap labor, and there’s no way to get any of these material items to last no matter how much or how little I pay.