Purse Snatching

What's a girl got to do to get a fake Louis Vuitton around here?

Comments (0) By Lynn Yaeger Tuesday, Jul 17 2007

Finally, after what seems like the better part of an hour, my guy is back. He's bearing not a beribboned package but a garbage bag, and in it is my Globus. Trouble is, we can't take it out of the bag: I'm allowed to peek in, which I do, but when I say I don't care for the brown medallion after all, the woman in charge goes ballistic. "Oh my God! My brother got brown!" "I told you brown!" the brother chimes in, furious.

Now, I don't just feel like a criminal, but also an ingrate, a user, a cold, unfeeling person who took up nearly an hour of these hard-working people's time. I walk swiftly—OK, I run—across the street, where I immediately see a couple of other gentlemen lurking with cards. I am tempted to try again—maybe someone else has pink?—but am suddenly seized with the thought that maybe they all work for Steely.

photo: Mollye Chudacoff

It may look like a plastic tote, but it's Louis Vuitton's $1,800 PM Street bag.

More About

Terrified of another confrontation and feeling unaccountably guilty over the whole ordeal, I scamper up Greene Street, where I find myself inside the gleaming, air-conditioned, near-empty Vuitton store, a far cry from Canal's raffish encampments. And there I discover this summer's version of the Globus. It's called the PM Street, for some unfathomable reason ( pas mal? pauvre moi?), and made of leather cunningly woven to resemble those plaid plastic shopping totes for sale in third-world markets and usually carried only by people of extremely limited means. Of course, the original version—of which, ironically, this is clearly a copy—lacks the round Vuitton logo, but then again it is also available for substantially less than $1,800.

Sick and campy and in extremely bad taste this item may be, but I am ashamed to say I kind of like it. Oh, well, what's the hurry? Steely and company will be stuffing its likeness into a trash bag any day now.

Last week: Lynn Yaeger gets an exclusive peek at Sex and the City's upcoming movie script.