There are gym rats who use their Goyard, Longchamp, and Louis Vuitton tote bags as gym bags. I have yet to see a Hermes at the gym, though.
Perhaps Hermes tote bags have been appearing at the gym but I simply do not recognize them, no thanks to my zero fashion expertise.
I use canvas tote bags as gym bags. Stars and hearts float in front of my eyes each time I see one at any store. When the Trader Joe’s tote bags went viral, I bought one, of course. S&R also has a similar one and it is being sold as a set together with its own mini-me—I bought those, too.
In other words, the canvas tote bags have morphed into a collection.
The challenge in collecting items is storage since I cannot use them all at once.
The piggies are okay as they are all oinking inside two glass-enclosed cabinets along with the miniatures. Same for the books that I have decided to keep. No, they are not oinking. They are merely hibernating until I will reread them again.
Other items can only cause clutter, including clothes.
The pandemic lockdowns made me realize that loungewear is essential. Thus, clothes that look old or I have outgrown automatically morph into loungewear. How much loungewear do I need? Whew.
There is this particular store whose merch, especially the women’s blouses, is displayed forevermore, there is always the possibility to see friends who are wearing exactly the same tops. So I have stopped buying its blouses. Its T-shirts, though, are okay. If I see someone clad in its, say, latest Star Wars shirt, I will just smile at him and move on. For gym shirts, I buy from its children’s section and it is now a given that my friends’ kids have those same shirts, too.
There was a time when its men’s striped blue-and-green polo shirt was on sale and it went viral, complete with memes, because many guys bought it. Each time I was malling then, I would actually count how many were wearing it.
Buying its bottoms is okay. Bottom-twinning with someone you happen to be with at the moment is no big deal, compared to blouse-twinning.
When do the number of clothes become enough? Hmm. Let us ask Small Laude and Jinkee Pacquiao whose luxury brand collections ensure they always have expensive OOTDs.
But luxury, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
People who can afford luxury brands will eventually get tired of accumulating more. The first time they were finally able to buy a luxury item was perhaps the happiest day of their shopping-spree life. But as the years go by and they continue to buy more, luxury loses its luster. Even a Hermes bag will now induce boredom: “How much is that? Two million dollars? Ho-hum.” That is the price of masterpieces like the Sac Bijou Birkin, the Ginza Tanaka Platinum Birkin, and the Rose Gold Kelly. All three are diamond-encrusted.
And 2 million dollars can be pittance to contractors and government officials who allegedly benefited from the flood control scams.
There is this ice cream commercial that asks, “Hanggang saan aabot ang 20 pesos mo?”
If a businessman, who happens to be the father of an actor/congressman, were to answer that, he would probably say, “I just paid P121 thousand cash to a resto for a meal with friends, and gave P20 thousand cash as tip to the wait staff. How dare you ask me that question.”
In the minds of corrupt officials and their favorite contractors, the Pinoy has no right to question how public money is used as they treat the national treasury like a personal piggy bank. But they forget one thing: that money belongs to the taxpayers, and we have every right to demand a receipt.
Well, the Pinoy is better off exercising if reading the news about one more corruption case is causing him much stress.
