Vintage Dooney & Sarah Vickers

Picture it: middle school, 1992.  These years can be tragic at best... but especially when every girl walks the hallway carrying some version of a Dooney & Bourke handbag... and you don't.  OH to have one of my own!  Especially in Ivy!  Mom and Dad, will you please buy me, a twelve-year-old girl, a $200 purse so I can be friends with the cool kids?  Answer: heck no!  My parents, being excellent teachers of life lessons, responded with the expected: if you want it badly enough, save your money and purchase it yourself.  SO... that is exactly what I did.

Fast-forward to Christmas 1993.  Armed with $250, I headed to Stripling and Cox the day after Christmas to purchase my very own Dooney & Bourke.  In IVY.  Preferably the small square one with the cute buckle on the front.  Sadly, being the day after Christmas, every Ivy colored bag was gone... as well as all the square ones with the cute buckle on the front.  What to do?  Well, like most teenage girls with money burning a hole in their pocket and an illogical need to return from Winter Break with the purse, I gave in... and bought a different one... in black.  Not smart.

When we returned home I set the Stripling and Cox shopping bag on one of our dining room chairs and left it there.  Every few hours I would go in and look at the purse and try it on, trying to decide if it had really been worth that amount of money, especially since it was not even the one I really wanted.  After a week or so, I opted to keep it and carried it for about three years... but the Ivy bag was still in my heart and I honestly regretted spending all my money on something I did not even really like.

Years later, I sold my Dooney in a yard sale.  I never had much of an attachment to it anyway, so it was not a big deal to me... and I don't think I had ever thought about that bag again until I was roaming around on Sarah Vickers' blog last week... where I found this photo of her... carrying my black, unloved, vintage Dooney & Bourke!

Classy Girls Wear Pearls

Too funny.  While I love her style, seeing my old bag still does not make me like it anymore than I did when I was 13... but it did make me wonder what Dooney and Bourke offers now... and I found this delightful equestrian bag... in IVY :  ) It may have to find a way into my closet.

Lesson of this ridiculously long, silly trip down memory lane?  My Dooney and Bourke bag was my first significant, expensive shopping experience... and I learned to be smart about shopping.  Buy what you really love, and if what you want is not available, wait until it is and then take the plunge.  Through the years, and especially lately, I have become increasingly aware of making intelligent purchases in regard to quality and long-term appeal.  Do not waste your money, your time, or your closet space on things you do not adore.

I also have to ask the question... when did stuff from the late 80s and early 90s become VINTAGE?!