How I got a free Loewe bag (that's apparently been cursed)
A story about my greatest (or worst?) fashion find on Vinted.
I moved to Spain at the end of last year and it didn’t take me a long time to notice that everyone (especially fashionable grannies that go grocery shopping at El Corte Inglés) is wearing Loewe. Of course that’s an exaggeration but it was a good excuse for me to find the courage and go to the flagship Loewe store for the first time. That was the season when Jonathan Anderson did a huge collab with a Kyoto based ceramic studio Suna Fujita and all the store was covered with figures of penguins, seals and lemurs. The collection itself was adorable and I’m now waiting when it’s gonna be on a resale market at an affordable price (probably in 5-10 years…) Well there I touched the hammock bag for the first time and kinda fell in love with it’s sculptural shape.
I don’t own any designer bags and can’t really afford to buy them (even on the second hand market, where the prices are twice as low but still ~1000 euros) but I decided to still check what hammock bags Vinted has to offer. To those not familiar, Vinted is basically a European eBay where you can buy and sell everything, not just luxury clothing like Vestiare Collective. It’s my favorite platform to shop because that’s where grannies sell their vintage Prada.) That’s where I found her. A completely beaten up Loewe Hammock bag for 300 euros.
I’m still hesitant to buy. Yes, it’s Loewe bag for just 300 euros but it’s still a whole 300 euros for the bag I’m not sure is authentic, in the color I’m not sure I like and in the condition I’m not sure can be fixed. So I start chatting with the seller.
I ask her about the authenticity of the bag and she tells me that she got two hammocks in second hand condition herself and authenticated them through Vinted (I think their or Vestiare Collective authentication is a joke but we can talk about that later), when the bags arrived she even got that beaten-up bag to the bag spa where they tried to breathe new life into it and fix discoloration but it ended up looking even worse, so now she is just trying to get rid of it. Her profile is just a few other personal items like Burberry shoes and one other luxury bag. She doesn’t seem like a person who sells clothes for a living, probably just cleaning up her wardrobe so I trust her story of how she got the bag. Plus she says I can return it if I don’t like it so I decide to pull the trigger and get it (not without a bargain). So I buy the bag for 210 euro + shipping.
A couple of days later it arrives: obvious signs of wear, signs of it being in the bag spa (new paint on the edges done not really well) and the worst thing: it doesn’t really hold it’s beautiful geometric structure much. It completely complines with the listing description from the seller and the photos but I realize I can't really save it, so I decide to ask the seller if the return + refund is still possible. While I’m trying to figure out the process of initiating the return in the app (it’s my first one), the seller completes the refund herself. But without the return.
She tells me she had enough trouble with the bag and doesn’t want it back.
So here I’m with a free beaten-up Loewe hammock bag. Is it fake? I don’t know. Did I go to Loewe store to compare it to the authentic bag in the same color way? Yes, I did. Was it the same? I guess so but I’m not an expert. Do I think that the seller knew if it’s real or not? I have no idea what’s the point to sell someone a fake bag and then not take any money from them. I also have no idea why would you pay for the bag spa if you know it’s fake. But as she mentions, she doesn’t have much experience with the brand and neither have I. So if any of you can authenticate it, I’m ready to send you pictures.
When I posted this story on Reddit many people knew the answer to my story: “The bag is cursed and now it’s on you” :)
I decided it’s not ethical to sell it as I got it for free and if it’s cursed I don’t want to pass it to anyone…I kinda had nothing to lose so I re-dyed it black (to hide discoloration and loss in structure and make it fit into my wardrobe more). But that’s a story for another time.
Thank you for reading my first Substack post! And a big thank you to Viktoriia Vasileva for encouraging me to write it.
You can also follow me on Insta for more lifestyle content with no words.
Sasha
Congrats on the first post! What an interesting story behind your designer purchase. Your "new" bag now means more than any other Loewe Hammock you see on the street being so uniquely yours!
Cursed or not!! You would be cursed for not doing everything you could to own a free (!?) Loewe bag. I love this story, everything it says about you loving a brand, patiently shopping second-hand and breathing new life into it! Bravo!