Love Handbags for life...

A survey carried out on 1500 shoppers in Essex in the Lakeside shopping centre had some interesting results:
Handbags have changed their role in our lives from a fashion accessory to a lifestyle necessity! (This is just the sort of thing my blog is about as you can tell from my subtitle!)

It seems that most of us will amass 111 bags in our lifetime – hence the title of this post! And how did they get to this result? They questioned young ladies in the shopping centre. The average 30-year old own 21 handbags and buys a new one every three months. On average we spend £76 per handbag, but obviously there are handbags that are a lot more expensive. With £76 you would not get very far with Mulberry or Chloe!

As a result the 111 handbags that we will approximately buy will set us back about £8000, which is not that bad compared to how much we would save if we made our own lunch according to a study by MoneyMatters! They questioned 500 people and found out that they will spend around £42,000 on lunchtime sandwiches and snacks over their lifetime!

I think I am going to start packing my lunches right now – that should save me money for my next handbag-purchase!

Anyway, I am veering away from the subject: This phenomenon has been dubbed the Sienna Miller syndrome, since the researchers believe that Sienna Miller and other celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have helped spark the craze for glitzy expensive designer handbags.

The survey did not stop here and brought out some more interesting facts:
On average we use three handbags on a regular basis (Sometimes I do at the same time!! ?) – and keep the others stashed somewhere nearby for easy access.

Handbags are often passed down the generations – one in eight of the women questioned had a bag older than 50 years old. That reminds me of the lovely handbag I have inherited from my grandmother – Wow! I am one in eight! I also imagine that a lot of these old handbags and purses are purchased through “vintage” auctions on e-bay.

One in three felt guilty about the amount of handbags they buy.
Seven in ten said they bought many handbags because “you never know what they’ll go with”.
One in five said they could not through their old bags away because of their sentimental value!
When asked what was the most they had ever spent on one, the average for women in their 20s was £185, while for 30-somethings it was a purse-popping £380, with designer labels Mulberry and Chloe being most popular.
Angela Poplett is a personal shopper at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex, which carried out the survey. She said: "It's clear from the results of this research that British women have some sort of handbag obsession.
Hehehehe… ?