Hideously ugly? Or, perhaps, like Frankenstein's monster, this bag, the Louis Vuitton Tribute Patchwork Bag, is just horribly misunderstood...I think probably the latter.
OK, yes, the idea is kind of cute in a mad scientist sort of wa...making a bag not just of the scraps left over from other bags, but fashioning it to look like 15 bags cut apart and sewn together...it appears that all the locks, clasps, straps and zippers really work (wait...it's not Frankenstein...it's Dressy Bessy's handbag!). However, executed, it just looks like a mess...a -are you sitting down?- $42,000 mess. No, my "0" is not stuck...there are 3 of them, preceded by $42, and a comma. It is being billed as the worlds most expensive handbag, which I have as of yet not verified (I'm guessing an exotic Hermes might fetch close to that), as well as being virtually impossible to copy.
Even if you'd rather buy a bag than, say, put a down payment on a house, you're out of luck. There are only 24, and a mere 4 are slated for the US market. According to a Louis Vuitton rep quoted in today's New York Post all are already spoken for.
One celebrity bagista we know who will not be carrying one, is Kelly Ripa, who earlier today on Live with Regis and Kelly said that she thought the bag was hideously ugly at first, outrageously priced, but as proof of how marketing works, admitted that upon hearing there were only 4 she said, "I had to have one!". But was then emphatic that she was not one of the loony, er, I mean, lucky 4 ladies to get one.