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Hi and welcome! I wanted to kick off my first official blog post with an introduction. Of myself. Which if you know me, you know this is so hard for me!! And if you’re family, you’re snickering with an eye roll saying, ‘yeah right’! Which only means I’m a complete introvert unless around my family then all bets are off.
So, without further ado, my name is Jilian Sullivan, and I am a leather snob. There, I said it.
I guess when you grow up in the country, in Northern California, surrounded by saddles and boots, leather snobbery comes naturally. I blame Notley’s Western Wear. As soon as you walked in you were bombarded with the smell of leather everything. It’s a distinct smell, earthy and natural it just smells like home.
I can’t tell you when exactly my obsession with handbags started, but I can tell you I learned a lot along the way! I spent my early 20’s thinking I needed all things designer, be it clothing, handbags or sunglasses! And if you remember being in your 20’s, you weren’t likely to shell out $500 plus on a designer bag. So where does that leave you? Wasting your money on ‘dupes’. I know we’ve all been there…those ‘handbag parties’ where they would bring a trunk full of designer dupe bags and you scoop up two or three for less than $50 bucks! Yep, that’s where it started for me. But notice I said ‘waste’? That’s because they were always very trendy and always poorly made. Meaning they lasted a few months then to the trash or donation pile they went. Along with my desire to keep buying cheap knock offs.
Enter my late 20’s. When it was the ‘bigger is better’ era in accessories. If your bag didn’t hide Marry Poppins, were you even accessorizing properly? I spent so much time scouring the big-name department stores for sales on handbags, because I still wanted the cool bags, but I still wasn’t going to spend an arm and a leg to do it.
Fast forward a few years, a lot of maturing, add in marriage and couple kids and your priorities change. However, that doesn’t mean your love of high-quality items has to! I am still a leather snob, but learned designer doesn’t mean better, it just means you’re spending a lot of money for a name. High quality doesn’t always mean high prices. And a good leather bag will surpass all the trends and fads and will only get better with time.
I started All Leather Handbags because I wanted a place that offered high quality leather handbags at reasonable prices. I wanted the best vendors with the most classic and classy bags, and some fun and funky options that met everyone’s styles and needs. I will always be that girl that cannot wait to open her new bag and smell that earthy nostalgia…I hope you do the same!