One of the items on my wish list for 2015 is a white handbag. (Listen to my rationalizing here! It's funny when I went back and re-read what I wrote when I was done. I must really want this bag! )

This Ferragamo dome bag has been fiercely pulling at my heartstrings for about a month. I absolutely love it's shape, color and size. I believe it fits my style and is "Composed Creative". The biggest deterrent is the cost. If I purchase, it would be the most expensive item I have ever bought. I certainly can find similar less expensive bags, and even own one, the Dooney and Bourke Saffiano leather bag below (Which I love). The Dooney and Bourke comes in a bone color in pebble leather. I like the Ferragamo perforated bag better. This level of attraction to an item hasn't happened often and I am truly torn about what to do. Should I make this my 50th birthday present to myself? I was going to splurge and get something nice - a new camera and tripod are on the list, plus some unknown item. This could be the unknown. (I am also planning a double celebration half way between my DH and my 50th birthdays with our families, we are calling it the Hundred Year Celebration).

I love that this bag has a simple shape. I like the perforations but worry this takes the bag out of classic territory? I wonder how hard it would be to keep clean? Is this bag an investment piece?

I read TG;s post recently and I added my thoughts that the only item I truly invest in are handbags. My history with handbags is funny. I bought my first nice leather handbag when I graduated medical school. My husband, who was a graduate student at the the time, and I had almost no money of our own, we were in major debt, we were walking down the street in Washington DC on a vacation paid for by our parents (very generous and kind of them), and I saw a bag in a window at a Coach store. I loved it and bought it on the spot. I can recall with some shame how unhappy my husband was about the purchase, but he still let me get the bag. Somehow, we managed to get by and pay off the bills with my husbands meager graduate student stipend. Our life was so stressful. We were newly married, and we had financial stress plus the stresses that develop in a relationship when one of the partners is doing a medical residency with long hours of on call duty. Obviously, I completed my training before there were laws that limited the amount of hours that doctors in training could work in a week. We had so much debt in those years it was frightening (I have much empathy for anyone with debt, especially student loan debt, I remember it all too well.) I am so lucky to have my DH after so many years! He stuck with me through those tough years and that 1st purse always reminds me of this for some reason. It has such sentimental value.

I told that story above for a reason. I have purchased bags at every major milestone in my life, births, deaths, graduations, and I have kept them all. I am not sure why, but I seem to find them at those times. They are always the bags that I end up keeping for a long time, and they are always the expensive and most classic bags. I never purposefully seek them out, they seem to find me. Could this be the milestone bag?

Is this a classic bag that I will have for the next 20-30 years (like my other bags)? Will this bag go out of style quickly? What do you think?