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It was 1997, I was in Singapore on a business trip and in between meetings. Wandering through the Raffles arcade I stumbled across a brand new Gucci boutique. I had recalled reading an article in the Wall St Journal not too long before that about how Gucci were re-launching their brand - cutting back mass production and focusing on quality hand fashioned products to re-establish their quality and design credentials.
Knowing that all of these things come at a price, with some trepidation I stepped into the boutique thinking - I'll just have a look....Well one thing led to another and there was this handbag - a lovely grey minimalist baby Gucci with chrome trim. I had to have it, what's more I had to have the matching wallet. My justification was I was turning 30 and didn't every professional woman entering the most important decade of her career require the best tools of the trade?
I think all up I paid about A$2500 for the matching set and it was a love affair I thought would last forever....but alas nearly ten years to the day my heart was broken. On a business trip in Melbourne, I again found myself in between meetings, this time we were having a quick bite in one of those lovely arcades. I was with a colleague and as I had offered to pay, I stooped to grab my bag (which I had thought was safely tucked under my chair) but somehow it disappeared!!!! Disblief and denial turned into desparation. In the end, the authorities did track down the culprit (on CC TV) but my Gucci was gone forever.
It just so happened that I had been using a different wallet and so I still have it and occaisionally take it out like an an old love letter. I did eventually replace the bag with a similarly coloured mini Louis - and so commenced a new love affair.
when I first met Jean-Paul... my first designer item was a dress by Jean-Paul Gaultier which I purchased at Browns in London (won't mention the price, but in sterling it seemed much cheaper than Mom said it appeared on her Amex bill...). It was a black dress, clever combination of jersy and silk taffeta. A sort of one part tank top/ one part ball gown- oh and it was the '80's so it had a bubble-skirt thing going on also.
ReplyDeleteI was there visiting my sister, a trip my parents offered me upon graduating high school. Many years later the designer dress eventually became a victim of one of my many, relocating moves...still I will never forget my first "little black dress".