I want a leather bag to pass on to my, at the moment theoretical, children.
My dad used to have a Rolex watch that was a gift from his uncle. He would always tell me that some day I would become the watch's new owner, although the date for said hand-off kept getting pushed back further and further. 18. 21. When I got married. But I can hardly blame him - the watch was actually a gift from his own father to the uncle, and was in a way the only item my dad had received from his father's legacy.
When my dad lost that watch while boating I felt an odd sense of loss for something I never had. A big fan of Tolkien I viewed the watch as an heirloom, a tangible representation of my, for lack of a better term, bloodline. It was a physical link between our three generations.
Whether or not a consumer item should hold such promise is debatable. Ideally I would have liked the watch to be made by a crafstmen in "our" village, who sent for the various components by horse and had them delivered in leather packages from "the outer lands." This is, of course, utter nonsense, but I can't shake the imagery. However, we live in times where the mass-production of things such as wrist watches has increasingly negated their inherent value, and, like it or not, a watch manufactured by Rolex (or Breitling or Patek Phillipe) remains the closest some of us will ever get to that artisan quality.
All of this came back to me while watching Wes Anderson's latest film, The Darjeeling Limited. The three brothers tote around their father's (Marc Jacob designed Louis Vuitton) luggage like talismans, only abandoning them, perhaps a little too symbolically, at the very end as they cast off the heavy weight of his recent death.
I still get a certain thrill out of wearing one of my dad's old suit jackets, or even when we exchange Christmas gifts for sizes. And when I see old photos of him with a leather blazer and Chelsea boots I don't ask where they are, because I know the inevitable answer - that they were lost to time and travel and raising two kids - will break my heart. A child, even a 31 year-old child, wants his father's Chelsea boots.
I'd like my desire to pass something onto my children to be less contrived, and certainly less inspired by a Hollywood movie. But without forethought and a little planning, chances are my children will be choosing from a moth eaten Trovata blazer or Gravis shoulder bag. So I've decided that, along with that insanely expensive watch I will one day buy myself, my children will inherit a lovingly distressed leather weekend bag.
Leather, because I like the way it ages, and weekend bag because...they're very practical. Instinctively I want to buy an LV and just be done with it, but I know that price is only one of, and a not very important one at that, factor to consider. More than likely I will come across the bag when I least expect it, hidden away on some long-forgotten shelf.
Or I'll buy it from Amazon. The biggest problem right now is choice. I can spend anywhere from 65 to 10000 dollars, and the bags are made everywhere from Malaysia to Portland.
And I need to have children.
