The handbag guy on the corner will have knockoffs of this puppy within a few weeks.

Too, too, silly! I'm spending my $4000 + on some other purse this year, take that, Gucci!

How do you live with yourselves?

Clicking through the link to the blurb for the "pouchlike bag" today, April 22, aka Earth Day, pops up a page with a big "Celebrate Earth Day" tag in the upper right corner. I'm sure all those pythons are celebrating today. Nice timing!

Or did it refer to the entire female reproductive system?

Think me you no very far off, Ms Catherine, when see reproduce organ in ad. Purse look like uterus with two little button ovary.

Make sense for carry around uterus and match with shoe, but $4,350 is extreme underprice.

Svutlana

a $4,000 bowling bag, to me.

Not 4K cute but I'll bet Coach is working on a knock-off in real snake skin right now.

when the third tier designers (9-West et al) start knocking off this bag in variety of vinyl colors at $80 EVERYONE is going to be carrying it (I’ll take mine in bright green, please). And that’s what Gucci is all about – this bag isn’t supposed to be for everyone. But it is supposed to set a larger trend and I’ll bet that happens with this bag.

Of course - by the time it's out on the street the fad is as dead as a black, Kate Spade box tote.

And regarding the snake skin – animal rights issues aside natural skins are certainly preferable to pressed vinyl. No?

i'm quite sure the advertisers and marketeers were quite aware of what they were doing in calling the line hysteria.

(the bag is cute, no?)

I would never spend $4000 on anything that isn't house, car, or education but, that being said, I'm more bothered by paying money to the criminals through the guy on the corner....

To me, right now, given my financial situation and that of the country, spending $4500 on a freakin' *purse* is just beyond ridiculous. I don't care what it's called, how stylish it is, or how they advertise it. If I had $4500--which I clearly don't--it would be socked away to pay for ever-increasing gas prices, grocery prices, and health care expenses. If I had any left over, I'd save it to keep us going through my spouse's year-long and ongoing unemployment.

Give me a break. It's an accessory!

Not 'more likely to' be made with slave labor. 'Most definately' made with slave labor. Supports organized crime, to boot.

Sorry to ruin your $10 handbag social-justice fantasies.

Why do you assume that the ad team is female?

Oh good, you're proving you can be surly about any article. Why not just edit it down to a re-usable comment? You could cut and paste and save a lot of time. After all, you never say anything worthwhile. After awhile, you could just post "ibid".

Here's a rough draft for you:

Ahrr! I'm Electro Robot! *Stomp* *Stomp* *Stomp* I don't like things! Everyone else is bad! Rar! I'm Surly! Whatever the point here was, the opposite! Or maybe something completely unconnected, but I hate you all! I hate myself! Boo!

Give that a shot, maybe throw in some more sound effects and you've got yourself a keeper. Heck, you could replace everything you've posted on Salon with that and I don't think anyone would notice the difference.

Good luck!

Even if I could, I don't think I'd spend $4K on a handbag. And if I did, it would be a classic, not a fad, and I wouldn't tell anyone.

If a fun and colorful article about an obscenely priced, ridiculously named accessory can impart to me a new item of knowledge so truly interesting and intriguing as that Greek free-floating uterus reference, I say Gucci's Hysteria collection has served its purpose!

The insane amount of cheese in that promo video made me think for sure that it was a Zoolander DVD extra.

Somebody made that with a straight face. Shudder.

You are precious. Don't ever lose that childlike wonder.

I did not read the whole article, I got to the " I buy 10.00 knock offs" part and was shocked that you would not know those cheap purses,sold on the corner (including "pocket-book p

arties), are manufactured by CHILD labor.

It really does not bother me that Gucci and Chanel may loose a few bucks, however women who choose to buy on the cheap do so on the backs of little children. That makes me sick.

Either cough up the money and purchase the real thing or come to grips with the fact that pretending to be a "Park Avenue Socialite" is pathetic.

I apologize if someone has stated this already.

Whose uterus does this bag even remotely resemble? I think it looks like a snake's head.

I just don't get the whole "bag" thing.

I don't get the Gucci snobbery, nor the knock off bag parties.

Can someone explain to me why they became such a big thing?

This is so ugly, I can hardly believe it. It looks like it is going to split open and give birth to an alien. I wonder how much I would pay NOT to be forced to haul it around.

But then, I like Kate Spade box totes.

it's a beautiful thing.

it sells you animal death for more then it's worth.

... to carry around a heavy bag filled with "essential" items. It's not just a gender issue, because some women don't and some men do.

I did not expect that Broadsheet would at some point have a post on handbags, but...here we are.

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that carrying a purse is somehow culturally obligatory for women in general, which, let's face it, is just silly and burdensome.

That aside, the bag is fantastically designed, and has a really nice OVA shape.

This object d'art combines multiple concepts, including that of the idea of 'feminine object' with ova-shape, and uteran linguistics: naming it "hysteria," a word laden with weight of historical medicalisation of womens behaviour, using science as an instrument of social control.

It is appealing and luxurious, and outrageously priced. But it is alas, just a purse. (note to self: I should be writing a review, but instead I am posting on Broadsheet.)

To attempt and answer your question - yes, the designers at Gucci have probably realized *exactly* what they are selling. For one, designers have plenty of schooling in history of contemporary and classic art. And to have a great design is to do exactly that - have multiplicity of concepts combined into a single appealing object that will ultimately be copied by every sweatshop.

So...what is really your question???