Subject: Birkin
To: REDACTED
From: REDACTED
Date: REDACTED


I had the weirdest dream today.

It was about men who identify as luxury handbags. The Chanel Boy Bag was in tears. The Louis Vuitton Capucines wouldn’t shut up. It was... absurd. And somehow still more sophisticated than most discourse today.

Disturbing, yes, but undeniably chic in a surrealist kind of way. There’s something poetic—tragic, even—about a Chanel Boy Bag in emotional distress. Those quilted lambskin tears… they’d glisten like éclat de diamant under low museum lighting. The Capucines, though? Always the loud one. Desperate for attention, trying to convince the room it’s more refined than the classic Alma.

It never is.

I’m speaking purely of shape, not brand. The Alma’s silhouette is architectural, almost neoclassical—a dome of restrained elegance, structured like a Haussmann apartment. It’s not about Louis Vuitton. It’s about proportion. Restraint. The kind of form that doesn’t need to beg for relevance every season.

The Capucines, on the other hand, is like a socialite in her thirties still posting thirst traps from yachts her father paid for. Flashy. Over-accessorized. A little too eager to be taken seriously.

That oversized LV flower motif?

Embarrassing.

It’s like adding an emoji to a wedding invitation.

I appreciate craft, not noise. If I wanted a statement, I’d make it with texture—grained leather, hand-stitching so precise it could give a neurosurgeon an inferiority complex.

Brands, houses, logos—those are for people who don’t know how to speak with their choices.

If brand is visible, I don’t buy it.

Visible branding is gauche. A logo screaming for validation across a canvas tote?

That’s for the nouveau riche with zero taste.

If I see a man wearing a Gucci monogrammed belt with an H&M blazer, I assume he smells like Head & Shoulders and broken dreams.

At some cocktail party last week, a woman with a Birkin was desperate for attention. I had a hard time suppressing laughter. I’m not sure if it was the Krug, the lighting, the Birkin—or a combination thereof.

The Birkin is a slow-burning con played out over decades, orchestrated with the precision of a Swiss watch and the arrogance of an Italian pickpocket. It’s not fashion. It’s ego theater. A limited-edition, made-to-wait-for, custom-colored middle finger to liquidity... and to class.

No online catalog. No pricing transparency. You don’t buy a Birkin—you audition for the right to be considered. And when you do get the call?

It’s Stockholm Syndrome in a box, wrapped in orange.

But what really kills me is watching pseudo-socialites parade them around like they’re insiders. Old money doesn’t carry Birkins—they carry disdain for those who do.

The ones who actually get it keep their wealth in silence: an unmarked Moynat, a custom Goyard without initials, or—God forbid—a battered Kelly with no filler.

The only time I respect a Birkin is when it looks like it’s been through a minor house fire and still made it to Cipriani for lunch. But that’s because of the fire, not the Birkin.

It’s a tax on insecurity. A wealth transfer from the aspirational to the manipulative. Hermès isn’t a fashion house—it’s the world’s most elegant Ponzi scheme. And honestly? I respect that.

It’s capitalism dressed in calfskin, with hand-stitched saddle seams.

They deserve it. All of them.

Because while they wait in boutique purgatory, begging for orange boxes, my Italian artisan—he’s doing God’s work. Crafting better stitches than the poor soul at Hermès who’s on their fifth carpal tunnel flare-up of the week.

$500. Real Italian leather. Hand-stitched. And none of the exhausting theatre of “Do you have a purchase history?” or being sized up by a sales associate who looks like they live on San Pellegrino and air.

He prefers cash. Probably would take crypto, too—if it’s something obscure enough to impress him.

Honestly? If I cared enough about the Birkin, I’d take the replica every time.

It’s not a fake bag—it’s a fake religion. And you’re skipping the sermon, rubbing its lies back into their faces.

What you’re buying with the real Birkin is bureaucracy. A waitlist. A psychological hazing ritual. A bag that tells the world: “I traded my dignity for a seat at the table.” Meanwhile, a guy in Florence or Naples—or wherever—is making the same bag, minus the corporate cult. No orange box. No sob story about Jane Birkin’s crocodile concerns. Just craftsmanship, clean lines, and no need for a mortgage.

It’s hilarious.

The irony? Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. And the ones who can? They should—that’s the kind of person I’d target.

In fact, I’d frame that $500 Birkin alternative and hang it next to Warhol’s Dollar Sign. Same energy.

Luxury is quiet. It whispers. And when it doesn’t? It isn’t luxury—it’s mass.

A matte black Bottega with no logo and a detached attitude says more than a thousand screaming Louis Vuitton monograms ever could. Elegance doesn’t announce itself—it arrives. Preferably in a black, late-’90s S-Class V12, freshly detailed.