Brands' Value

As with other normal girls in this country, I have a healthy obsession with brands.

There is a particular wallet that I've been coveting for some time now, of a famous brand with the well-known brown and dark brown patterns, though the brand's name escapes me at the moment. I'm pretty sure it's not Yves Saint Laurent. Too mossy. Definitely not Chanel.

It's not their signature pattern, it's their new colours, cream and grey (for some reason called "azure"... fashionable people must perceive colours in a different way from ordinary people).

If there's something that captures my imagination, I usually buy it without a care about consequences, like a good consumer that I am (what are credit cards for, after all, if not for that sort of emergency). Yet, somehow with this one, I'm uncharacteristically hesitant, like a teenage boy forever circling and eying a girl from an awkward distance.

The thing is, I know I'm not worthy of it. If I bought this beautiful wallet now, and carried it around with me like a trophy, I'd feel caught out. It would never be truly mine, just as a trophy society wife would refuse to be possessed by a nouveau riche. Which is an ugly metaphor, but you know what I'm trying to get at. You'd need more than a credit card to possess this wallet; you'd need the earning power to support it.

By some mischief of fate, a friend of mine has this dream wallet of mine.

She runs a company, and brought up two children on her own. I don't know what her age is (we didn't follow the rules and asked each other the age when we first met... maybe she told me since then, but I cannot remember), but she's one of those lucky people who look indeterminately young but mature at the same time.

She wouldn't call herself an entrepreneur - she'd say she only started up a company out of necessity - but she has the charisma of one; quiet self-confidence and charm. When she takes out that wallet, I'm sure it has more than just a bunch of credit cards in it. She's worth every penny in that beautiful wallet.

Now, that's where I want to be when I'm her age, whatever that may be (though there's a good chance I only have a shockingly short time till then).

This line of products would be long out of fashion by then, but I will get this wallet one day, when I know I can truly afford it. Not just to buy it but to keep it filled with some cash and some love (because I will love this wallet dearly when I finally have one). They might not produce it anymore, even, but I'd hunt it down on e-Bay if necessary. I'd pay that much extra for this one.

When you see me brandish this wallet, you'll know I'll have got there.

On a second thought, though, I wouldn't "brandish" it because I'll be this tasteful, quietly confident successful woman.