13 October - Handbag Envy

Handbag envy. Am zipping up my boots sat on the sofa after my bootcamp pilates class and my eye falls on the acqua blue leather bag next to me. It’s a jimmy choo. How lovely. I nearly reach to touch the leather but resist. Then my eye falls to a handbag directly opposite my feet on the floor. This is a black capacious leather Fendi. This is too much, this is not fair. Only 6 spaces in the class, one is a bloke, one is not taken so two top bags out of four potential ones. One woman has arrived in rambler sort of clothes so she would never have a proper handbag. I look up but all I can see is good looking young girls so clearly they have not worked to earn these bags! I can’t resist sneaking a look at the sheet with all our names for today’s classes and there they are: one Russian surname and one Arab surname. I knew it. They have not earnt those bags! They must be gifts. Or they could have earned them but am not going to go as far as calling every good looking foreign woman a prozzie - though last week a friend was having a drink with another friend’s lawyer and this one was joined by one of his Russian male client with a Swedish girlfriend in tow and a Russian female friend with impeccable English who claimed to have just arrived in London and was very vague as to what she was doing here. On pushing her, she admitted her English was due to consorting with American businessmen in Moscow. I doubt they were discussing her ‘studies’ for too long.

Later am at the supermarket near the Ladbroke Grove. It’s a cheap one, but stone me am queueing behind an 5’11 skinny girl (skinny jeans and Vans, so not a good look but if latest magainzes say so....) and she’s got a Marc Jacobs slung under her shoulder. This is too much of an affront. I can’t bear it. I wait till she pays and turns and see she’s not young, well, over 25 and wearing spectacles. She cannot be a model. Maybe she’s a designer? Maybe this one worked for her bag. I forgive her.