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Someone Give Me $1,000 So I Can Buy This Weird Velvet Sack

I don’t know why I love it, but I do.

By Alanna Okun

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The Row Ascot Small Velvet Tote, $990 (lol)

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Do you ever encounter something — a song, a sandwich, a person — so outside your usual realm of taste and yet somehow so enticing? Where you’re like, “I would not have said 30 seconds ago that I need this in my zone but now I definitely need this in my zone?” That is how I feel about this strange, slouchy little bag from The Row, whose cost is not dissimilar from that of my rent.

I’ve been trying to figure out just what is so appealing to me about it. Here are some potential reasons:

Ugh, jeal.
  • Fun to grasp, I bet.
  • Looks like you could put it on a stick and run away from home, like a once-wealthy Victorian orphan.
  • Could also wear it on your head as a fancy nightcap.
  • Or steal it from a castle filled with jewels.
  • Appears to fit almost nothing, unburdening you from the relentless, anxious need to carry basically all your possessions at all times, should the need arise for a pair of tweezers or some Band-Aids or a second book in addition to the book you are already reading in case you finish it or get bored.
  • It is small and blobby and therefore I want to protect it.

Look, there are so many things I would do with $1,000 before buying this bag — I’d go on a long weekend to a city I’ve never visited, or donate it to a worthy cause, or make a tiny igloo out of Nintendo Switches. It’s just not my M.O; I think I will die without ever spending that much on a purse, especially one that is objectively stupid.

But that’s part of the fantasy, the outlandish profligacy of it all, the absolute and insurmountable distance from my own boring, tote-bag-toting life. Goodbye, weird little purse. I hope someone loves you well.

UPDATE: The people have spoken.

Google tardigrades, they are so nuts! Just like me, apparently, for loving this bizarre object.

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