I Was Influenced: The Celine Hobo Bag

Well, it was bound to happen. I watch way more fashion-related YouTube than the average person would find tolerable. I’ve heard all about Missoma (or Mejuri) gold jewelry, the Loewe puzzle bag, the Gucci loafers, the By Far square-toe sandals, LilySilk blouses, the Chanel classic flap bag, the Veja white sneakers, the sweaters from Sezane and And Other Stories, the Valentino Rockstud sandals, the Arket T-shirts and linen shirts, the Organic Basics underwear, and of course the subscriptions to Skillshare, the ShopTagr app, and websites from Squarespace. I was bound to be influenced. I just never expected it to be about a handbag.

I’ve never owned a fancy purse and only have one bag in the rotation. My $7 thrifted Aurelia camera-style bag gets stuffed into my backpack or giant TJ Maxx (Adrienne Vittadini) tote bag when I go to a cafe or when I travel. I don’t even bother taking the stuff out. That’s why it came as great shock to me when I saw two of my favorite bloggers/vloggers with this vintage bag- well, bags- and got the bug.

It started with Lizzy Hadfield from Shot From the Street getting a cream vintage Celine hobo bag from Vestiaire Collective (a secondhand site for designer stuff). I took note. It was simple, clean, and a shoulder bag- not a crossbody that gets all tangled up in your coat and scarf. But knowing she spent somewhere in the range of 1,000 British pounds on the thing, I soon forgot its existence.

Until Anna from The Anna Edit got one. Hers was square at the bottom, not round like Lizzy’s, and it was navy blue and black, not cream. She readily admitted to tracking it down having seen it on Lizzy. I went onto Lizzy’s Instagram and discovered something even more interesting. She had the square blue one, too.

So the other night, instead of watching YouTube, I went on Thredup. Knowing full well that I couldn’t spend $633 on a purse (that’s apparently what Anna paid), I embarked on a mission to find a bag that looked like theirs. It wasn’t necessarily the color that got me, but the shape, the single strap that goes all the way from one side to the other, the clean, gently curved base (I’m thinking of Lizzy’s cream one now), the slim profile.

I scrolled through about a thousand bags that night, not even quite sure what I was looking for. I “favorited” lots of bags- small, crossbody bags that could replace my Aurelia (the crossbody strap is a little short), as well as anything that remotely resembled the Celines. And searching wasn’t easy: some were called bucket bags, some totes, some shoulder bags, and some hobos. I just sifted through everything.

The search carried on into the next day and I thought, “By God, I’ve found it!” A cream Marc Jacobs hobo bag that had the right shape, the right color, the right strap- it was a great “dupe” for Lizzy’s cream Celine. And with my discount code, it was only around $60. But I kept looking and I realized that I couldn’t justify buying a bag that big if it didn’t fit my laptop. According to the measurements, my laptop would stick out the top and deform the lovely curved bottom. It also looked heavy. I’m thinking in terms of travel here, and it seemed like it would take up a lot of my weight limit in my suitcase. It was also thicker than the Celine bag- you could see the extra leather from the side and I imagined that it would “bag out” when you put stuff in it. I kept it in my favorites, but I continued the search, this time looking for something that could accommodate a laptop.

I remembered Anna saying she could fit her laptop in her Celine Hobo and it dawned on me that it was the square shape that allowed her to do that. I got very invested in this Allsaints tote, but it also looked heavy for travel.

And then there was the dark horse: this minimal, vertical tote from Neely Mack, a brand which apparently no longer exists. It was all leather and had the slim profile I was looking for, the squarish bottom too. But it had two straps, not one, and they were positioned more in the center rather than at the very sides of the bag. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was minimal, a shoulder bag, and seemed lightweight.

I couldn’t decide, so I proceeded to scour the internet for two more days, actually injuring my shoulder and giving myself tension headaches in the process. I looked at actual Celine bags priced at over $1,000. I looked at Marc by Marc Jacobs hobos, especially one known as the “Too Hot to Handle” bag and seriously considered a grey one being sold from the Netherlands for $98. But again, the weight and the laptop issue persisted.

I found Amazon dupes from Pinterest links and perused basic leathergoods sites for something simple. But no amount of searching produced what I was looking for. Because I wasn’t really looking for a bag. I simply wanted to be one of those bloggers.

I wanted to be Lizzy or Anna, effortlessly chic and successful on social media, getting sent free sweaters and $1,000 handbags from companies that want to work with them. I wanted their seemingly easy, breezy lifestyles, snapping a few photos and blogging their days. I wanted a job that it seems like I could do, one that doesn’t involve an office where I cry in the bathroom half the day. And I want to not be in COVID lockdown anymore. I want to go to cafés, go shopping and travel, and I want to feel free.

When the headaches became too much and scrolling with my left hand too awkward, I went back to Thredup where there were things I could actually afford (I even had a $50 credit for sending in my old clothes- more on that soon). I looked at the 3 bags. I studied them. And I settled on the dark horse- the Neely Mack in black, only $37.69 with my discount. I threw in a pair of Danskin leggings (mine are getting big) and called it a day. I know this stuff won’t change anything, not really. But if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s finding a deal. So at least there’s that.