Top Five Luxury Brands for Handbags

The year is almost over, which means that it’s time to look back on 2014 and see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. There were celebrity marriages, divorces, deaths and shocking scandals. There were new television shows we loved and hated, there were life events that hurt us deeply and others that made us happy. There was loss and there was pain. There was happiness and tears of joy. People were lost, people came home. Overall, it was a pretty good year (my husband and I welcomed twins this year, and that was beyond awesome but the dog we adopted on Christmas Eve Eve ate our kids’ cat the same day so that wasn’t awesome) for most of us, and that includes those of us who love our luxury brands. Now that the new year is over (or just because you have all those gift cards burning ugly holes in your pockets from the holidays) it’s time to look around and see which of the luxe designers were the top handbag makers of the year. If you are looking for a truly luxurious handbag in which to invest in the New Year, you’ll want to consider one of these five (and no, we don’t consider Coach a luxury designer brand).

Louis Vuitton

Nothing, absolutely nothing, says high-end designer luxury quite like Louis Vuitton. For more than a century this brand has embraced all that there is to embrace in the world of luxury design, creating some of the most timeless, elegant pieces in the world. The collection began as luggage and moved into other fine leather goods. Though there have been many pieces and collections over the decades, nothing is more famous or recognizable as the monogram collection. The beautiful chocolate brown bags with the golden brown LV designs emblazoned carefully across the fabric. While a new bag is beautiful, there is something so elegant and sophisticated about the oxidized handles of a well-worn bag. It’s often the only way to differentiate between a new bag and one a woman has been carrying for decades. That’s a great example of the sheer quality this bag possesses, and it’s exactly the quality needed to maintain a reputation as flawless as Louis Vuitton.

Chanel

One of the most upscale and high-end designers in the world, most any woman would feel a piece of Heaven on earth to carry or wear a Chanel design. The handbags are exquisite. While Coco Chanel sometimes dabbled in the world of trendy fashions, her primary belief is that all women should be classic and elegant, and that feminine beautify is something never to be wasted. Fashion, design and style are personified by Coco Chanel, and every bit of her work drips with the same. Perfection is imminent in every perfectly stitched bag, each with its obvious interlocking Cs and its understated elegance. There is nothing bold or obtuse about Chanel handbags; it’s all lovely, simple and utterly classic.

Gucci

The Gucci name is one that’s highly familiar all over the world. Rappers have made it famous, rapping about their favorite loafers and their favorite bags. It’s a very noticeable bag with a subtle pattern perfectly suited for a man or woman in the business industry. Men and women alike love this particular designer brand, and many of the handbags here also double for overnighters and work bags. Men prefer the luggage from Gucci because it allows them to carry their items necessary for overnight work trips without lugging around large pieces of luggage they haven’t the time to carry around. The Gucci reputation is one that has been consistent for decades, and the brand has not seen any difference in the way their well-made bags are viewed by the general public over the course of the past few decades as more and more designers are making affordable lines for everyday casual stores.

Celine

Owned by Louis Vuitton since 1996, this brand was incorporated into the company and began making changes that would launch it into one of the premier designer brands in the world. Celine is all about high-end luxury, class and elegance. There is nothing less than sophisticated about this brand, and the designer house is famous for making beautiful pieces and gorgeous handbags that very few women can actually afford. Many of the bags in the Celine collection are so popular and so highly sought-after that they are not available for just anyone to purchase. Many of the bags are unavailable by the time some women head into boutiques to make a purchase and they are then asked to sit on lengthy waiting lists until a new bag is available for them to take home. It just goes to show how much this brand is revered in the world today.

Hermes

Perhaps the most high-end handbag designer in the world, Hermes is famous for making the bags that few people have the power to obtain. Some of the least expensive bags in this collection still cost well into the tens of thousands of dollars, and they go up into the millions. It’s common practice for women to find themselves on waiting lists years long to finally have an Hermes bag of their own, and it’s not something that most people can even afford. Even the wealthiest, most famous, most influential women in the world have some issues obtaining a bag of this nature without the help of even more famous, more influential and even wealthier women. And when you finally do get to carry an Hermes bag of your own, it’s one that’s so expensive that many children could go to college for years on your bag. That’s a pretty big deal if ever there was a pretty big deal. Hermes might not design handbags so readily accessible to the general public, but that does not mean that women will stop searching high and low for a bag of their own because it is nothing short of a status symbol.

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