Designer Handbag Bible

Balenciaga is famous for its bright colors. Nicole Richie has one small classique bag in mustard yellow a few years ago. This color was sold out everywhere thereafter. I cannot even find it on ioffer.

Finally here it comes.

It claims it is made of imported cowhide. Authentic Balenicaga is made of goatskin, its leather is paper-thin and buttery soft. It looks imported cowhide has some very distressed pattern as the real Balenicaga leather. But we can expect cowhide is more stiff and thicker than goatskin.

Nicole Richie has her lovely mustard yellow small classique.

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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I found a Balenciaga city bag from eBay this morning. Its leather is very distressed and slightly glossy - it just looks like the authentic Balenciaga leather. The only thing that made me doubt about its authenticity is its hardware.

a close-up of the leather. It looks like authentic Balenciaga leather.

Its hardware looks exactly like those on replica Balenciaga bags: silverish brass hardware.

The lampo zip tab looks like replica lampo zip tab too.

the classic replica Balenciaga hardware:

However as this is a 2004 model, it is the first batch of Balenciaga city bags. I know Balenciaga changed its hardware in 2005. So I was quite convinced that first taupe Balenciaga is authentic. But after a few hours when I checked that listing again in the afternoon, it was removed by eBay. It looks like eBay think it is a replica.

There is another green one from the 2004 collection on sale now. It has the same silverish brass hardware as the taupe one - something we can now only see from a replica Balenciaga bag, not from an authentic Balenciaga. Its leather looks exactly like the real thing - distressed yet glossy. This time this bag comes with a correct Balenciaga tag and a Barney receipt. If the number shown 115748 matches the serial number on the back of the metal tag, it should be authentic.

If anyone come across this and know Balenciaga did make this silverish brass hardware in 2004, please enlighten me. Or are these bags the first authentic quality replica Balenciaga bags made in the past?

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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Balenciaga has the greatest leather in the world: crackled and glossy. There are different leather texture in Balenciaga bags. Some are easy to copy since you can see it from replica bags. Some are hard to copy as we cannot find it on fake Balenciaga.

Authentic: crackled and glossy. I would say this is hard to copy as I never met one replica Balenciaga has such crackled leather.

This is authentic too. But it has a different look. It is not crackled. It is pebbly, supple and glossy. I’ve never seen this leather on replica Balenciaga bags, but I saw this leather from Fendi spy bag.

This is totally bubbly - authentic too.

This is another authentic leather from Balenciaga. It is not crackled or pebbly. It is simply distressed from the surface. This leather texture is easy to copy as I saw this leather from many replica Balenciaga bags.

a replica Balenciaga in crackled leather

replica crackled leather:

One bag can have mixed texture. i.e. this bag has pebbly leather on one side and distressed crackled leather on bottom.

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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Lindsay Lohan has tons of designer purses. Sometimes I wonder some of the bags are actually free for her because whenever she carried that bag there is a fuss the second day.

If Ashley and Lindsay both carried that bag, that bag might be hot in a few days or weeks. Here is the exception: Balenciaga arena bag. It came out after the must-have-motorcycle trend. Its quilted leather looks like Chanel bags while its design followed the Balenciaga box design. It is a hybrid of Chanel leather and box design.

This Arena bag was out of market very soon. It never brought any attention to any bagaholic. And you cannot even find it in the replica market. Here are the only two replica I found online. And they are not available any more!

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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I love Balenciaga bags. Whenever I see people paying a few hundred pounds for a replica from some online auction sites, I feel sorry for them. Never pay an authentic-bag price for a replica!

Let’s do a straightforward comparison between my authentic Balenciaga box bag and some replica here.

Forget abut lampo zipper and tags because every replica bag can get this right. They differ in leather and hardware!

Authentic Balenciaga

A replica:

close-up of the authentic - the real bag leather is so cracked. Its crack pattern is blue leather with lighter color cracks. Also check out the hardware! The real bag has copper tone brass hardware.

Here are some fake. The leather is distressed, but it is in the same color distressed pattern! They are just the creases of leather, not cracks! And the hardware on fake bags are silverish brass, not in a copper tone!

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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yeah, finally I saw the giant silver hardware Balenciaga bag!

a replica photo - it looks very authentic.

There is another photo. This photo looks like it is a real bag, part of the reason is its transparent background. But this photo is from an online replica store! They might steal the real bag photo as their stock photo.

If giant golden hardware means posh, then this giant silver means elegant!

I found this on ebay. I am very sure it is an authentic part time Balenciaga bag in lovely magenta. The leather is adorable. check out the distressed pattern - you can never get anything better than this……

Here is another silver hardware purple work bag from ebay Singapore. The leather looks very smooth. But I am sure it is authentic too - as far as I know there is no replica purple Balenciaga with silver hardware when the listing was on.

Tags: Balenciaga by Lucy
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