How A Handbag (kind Of) Explains America: The $8,600 Handbag: A Luxury Version Of The

[sportsnut]

We'll never understand why the marketing execs at fast-food conglomerates like Yum Brands and Riese Restaurants think that Americans want their calorie-laden, fat-filled chalupas, fried chicken and donuts under the same grease-splattered roof. Seriously! Who decided that Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut belong in the same 700 square-foot space? It's overkill, it's disgusting, and it's the very reason we don't much like cheeseburgers with bacon: Too many essentially unhealthy things (dairy, beef, pork) in too-close quarters.
Well there seems to be a similar problem among American fashion and accessories designers, specifically handbag-pornographers Lamberston-Truex. Idly flipping through Bergdorf Goodman's "Fall Preview 2007" magalog -- freshly arrived in our mailbox yesterday! -- we came across the following monstrosity: A $8,600, limited-edition handbag made of the skins of crocodile, ostrich, and lizard. Now far be it from us to rail against the use of animals for food or fashion -- most of us do wear leather and enjoy eating the flesh of cute, four-legged ungulates -- but there's something especially shameless and gluttonous (not to mention arrogant) about a bag that requires the deaths of no less than three different types of living creatures; something shameless and gluttonous that is distinctly, well, American. Much like a bacon cheeseburger. Or, uh, the idea that this country can fight three wars at once!
Lambertson Truex
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