Jezebel
“I think teenagers are all the same everywhere,” says Kira Plastinia, a 15-year-old Russian, and "wrinkles her nose." Kira is apparently the Miley Cyrus meets Mary Kate Olsen of the former Soviet Republics; her dad, an orange juice mogul, bought her a a clothing line, and a signature shade of pink, and Paris Hilton's number, and a horse named Baloven — meaning "someone who is spoiled and treated too well" — and now a store in Manhattan, which has inspired a profile in New York Magazine. Wait, am I really burdening you with this information? Do we really have such a dearth of the great global wealth concentration's photogenic beneficiaries over here? Over the weekend I was dutifully forcing myself to read the NY Times' review of a book called Bringing Home The Birkin, which chronicles the quest of an eBay Power Seller to land one of the coveted Hermes bags. "What is a Birkin bag and why on earth should I care?" demands editor Sam Tanenhaus of the book's critic, T: The New York Times Style Magazine editor Christine Muhlke, on the Review's weekly podcast.
"You shouldn't!" I yell at my laptop.
Muhlke tries, patiently, to explain that the bag was inspired by Jane Birkin, who had trouble keeping her shit together on planes, and the CEO of Hermes felt so sorry for her.
"And who is Jane Birkin?" Sam Tanenhaus wants to know.
"Jane Birkin," Muhlke replies, laughing, "was the wife, or possibly not actual wife of the French singer…please help me…"
ZOMG!
"…Serge Gainsbourg."
Yeah, exactly. The trappings of wealth are really fucking boring and no one fucking cares, not even the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and pretending that we really actually care because that's what the cool people do is just creating a dull class of international jet-setters who are all indistinguishably dull, and with that I'm going to leave you with two profound paragraphs from the Kira profile and the excerpt to Bringing Home The Birkin which will maybe bring some joy to going about the rest of your day poor.
More than ever, she’s right. A generation ago Russian teenagers were trading for jeans on the black market and listening to hopelessly out-of-date Billy Joel. But there’s no lag, anymore, between the culture that European and American teenagers consume and what makes its way to Russia. Kira and her friends vacillate between punk and pop and R&B with the same immediacy as their counterparts in Orange County or Leeds. They study photos of Lindsay Lohan’s leggings, Nicole Richie’s hair. Kira’s friends wear Abercrombie & Fitch, Topshop, and Hollister, bought during trips abroad or ordered on the Internet.
And here readers, the epiphany that inspired the writer to quit his job and start arbitraging overpriced handbags on eBay for a living:
But lately I found myself becoming more jaded by my globe-trotting. Not because of the silly things you always heard those bridge-club biddies bemoaning in the airport — it wasn't lost luggage or the lack of a proper bagel that had me down. I didn't mind the calculus of currency conversion or the etymology of exotic entrées. No, it wasn't the inconvenience inherent to travel that was burning me out. It was boredom. I had increasingly noticed a sinister sameness about each of these foreign cities. Before my very eyes, every place was turning into every place else.
The Russian-American Princess [NY Mag]
Bringing Home The Birkin [New York Times First Chapters]
Bag Man [New York Times]
Comments
I avoided this at the source so you bring it here? For shame!
I walked by that store this weekend and didnt even want to walk in so as to not be counted in the traffic reports.
In related news, man, I can't wait for Topshop to open in NYC. (Because, any dress over $40, I really can't afford, and I'm sick of telling people I get all my clothes from Delia's.)
Plastinia. ha. You couldn't make up something more fitting.
Is there any pointless 15 year old rich person you actually do want to read about? Surely they are all irritating when like me you're 29 and flat broke?
And everyone to everyone else.
@ineffable.me: Does it sell orange juice and horses?
There was something about her in the LAT the other weekend and it completely confused me, mainly because I don't understand a) why anyone would want to be friends with Paris Hilton, b) how she calls this a fashion line, and c) kids these days. Mainly C, really.
That sinister sameness? It's you, author of pointless book. A Hermes store in Paris will look like a Hermes store in any other city. You need to switch it up a little.
But shallow people rarely do, eh?
@ccchild: Hate to tell you, but Topshop ain't going to save you money since their prices have gone up hugely (even here in the UK) and their quality has plummeted at the same time...
A dress for 40 pounds is rare, let alone 40 dollars
i just looked up a Birkin bag on Ebay and the buy it now price for some of them are 48! hmmm... college tuition or birkin bag? down payment on a house or birkin bag?
@es-ki-mo: Probably, maybe fat free orange juice. From outside the store looked like Paris Hilton had babies with Lisa Frank and they threw up all over it.
@militia: that would be 48K
There is no way that girl actually said "calculus of currency conversion" or "etymology of exotic entrees".
Love. It. another self-entitled, spoiled, "Socialite", insufferable brat. This world obviously didn't have enough, apparently.
...a signature shade of pink...
Pfft. That's so 1959. ([en.wikipedia.org])
"I had increasingly noticed a sinister sameness about each of these foreign cities. Before my very eyes, every place was turning into every place else".
As a flat generic response, I will blame big box stores. that and people don't seem to want to be reminded that they are on vacation in a different/foreign city anymore. so all cities are becoming the same. same stores. same look. same same same
@militia: OH MY GOD, you were not lying. How is that possible? They're fug, dude.
[foto.mail.ru] this image haunts my dreams.
i almost bought a hot pink winter coat there once but then i realized that there was no way i could respect myself in the morning. it was cute and a good price, and my black one was pretty busted, but i just couldn't do it.
I love Jane Birkin. I am happy if more people know who she and her husband were. I am less happy to know that they know that because of a dumb fucking overpriced piece of shit status symbol BAG.
I'm terrifically skeptical of anyone who seriously feels like he's exhausted the world's supply of regionalism. "A generation ago, Russian teenagers were trading for jeans on the black market" -- a generation later, maybe you'll need to go someplace further afield before proclaiming the world flat?
@la_phantom_lady: Eh, 80% of cities on this earth fucking WISH they were the "same same same" as the few being discussed there.
@briardahl: Yeah. It's like, try going somewhere not in Western Europe, asshole.
@briardahl: what are you talking about? it is true: in the soviet union, black market US jeans were the shit. maybe i'm misunderstanding you about this whole "regionalism" thing.
@bananaballs: for real. you would have to PAY ME 48K to walk around with a dead crocodile on my arm.
@es-ki-mo: You're awesome & clearly reading my mind. I thought the same thing.
every place is every place? wtf, where are you GOING?
Hey author of lame book about a purse: Why don't you stop merely visiting all these cities and actually become a contributor to something? You know, give back to the culture, produce something new, quit sucking the life out of everything with your pointless consumerism.
Yeah, I think it's actually PLASTININA.
@vanka: I meant that if a generation passes and someplace like Russia starts to seem more like western Europe, that doesn't necessarily mean the entire world is now the same and there's no point to travel. In this case, it might mean that kids in Senegal are coveting jeans, and the untouched regionalism someone craves might be further out in ... Mongolia. Regional difference isn't anywhere near gone -- pure wealth differences will keep that from happening anytime in any our lifetimes -- and it's a bit cheap and silly to go around marveling as if the world has collapsed into one same-everywhere culture. (It's also silly to go around lamenting the sameness and commercialization of "all" cities when the residents of a lot of the world's cities are near-literally dying for some commercial action to come their way -- it's a complaint about a global economic elite, not anything about how people really live.)
@ccchild: topshop merch is already available at opening ceremony here (for the past year). however, i doubt you'll find anything below $40. for best selection, buy online directly from topshop.
@ccchild: I happen to really love Delia's. Oh and OT yes rich teenagers are ALWAYS annoying.
@briardahl: I think in this case it really is just specifically about Russia though. Russia is a completely different place than it was 20 years ago, drastically different from 10 years ago, and even slightly different than it was 2 years ago when I went to Russia for the first time. There is nothing in the Kira Plastinina article about travel at all, or to imply that because now when I go to the mall near my old apartment in Russia, the Kira Plastinina store is on the same level as the Apple Store and TopShop that the whole world is now like the US and Western Europe. I think this article is pretty Russia-specific, and a specific strata of the Russian population at that, and doesn't really have to do with "regionalism" at all but the Soviet-Yeltsin-Putin Russia transformation. And those annoying, entitled Golden Youth.
I do see Tonello's point--it's really about context. that is, the context of someone who would be buying a birkin. you can close your eyes and land on certain paris or london shopping streets, and see all the same retail chains, brands and people sporting the same looks. one has to really rout out the fresh/original. however, if one is not spending their time in these shopping quarters (and those that inhabit them), plenty of disparity can be found.
My roomate bought a shirt from this girls label. It was incredibly slutty. Not 15 year old appropriate clothing in my mind.
Oh Moe, Jealous Green brings out your eyes so well.
On topic: Does Moscow still have more billionaires per capita than anywhere else?
@militia: I'm having a shitty personal finance week, and knowing ladies out there are dropping 48k on a bag while I scrap together (very) late rent money and pick up a second job.
Brightened my Monday! Now off to Half Price books to sell off enough to pay for rent!
This morning I was sitting in the dentist office, waiting to have my wisdom teeth removed, reading Teen Vogue and read a little one page ditty on her. New York Mag picking up Teen Vogue scraps...
This girl shares my name. I'm ashamed.
@vanka: I'm talking about the bit of the guy's book, though, not the Plastinia article! (Sorry if my snipping from the way they're juxtaposed in the post read like I thought they were coming from the same place.) There are some pretty large and obvious socio-political reasons we'd have seen that change in Russia in the past few decades; that change is always happening somewhere. What I'm whining about is the way that leads to assumptions about how the process is over -- how someone's constantly looking at changes in a select group of cities (usually western or east-Asian or some select wealth neighborhood in India) and marveling at the process being done, the world made even. I will admit that this mostly bugs me because I don't want to have to keep reading that article for the remaining decades of my life.
But I'm talking about the way they're juxtaposed in the post: I know the quotes come from different places, they're just related mentalities.
Birken was a fashion icon from the 60's to the late 70's. As a teenager, I had a David Bailey photo of her pinned to my wall. But, some of you probably don't know who David Bailey is either.
@vanka: The excerpt from the Bringing Home the Birkin article is the article that presumptuously assumes that all the major cities in all major countries are now the same.
At first when I read this, I thought her name was Kira Plastica and had to think really??
@TeenageGangDeb: oh man i was in love with serge gainsbourg wayyyyyy before i put two and two together to figure out what a birkin was. i used to do french presentations on him!
And I don't care. I still want one.
@redheadedstepchild: yes
@briardahl: the way you phrased your regionalism post made it seem like you confused the two. i don't really think they're related mentality. one is pretty obvious trufax, the other is just... something i couldn't bear to read.
@TeenageGangDeb: I totally used to do presentations in French class about Serge Gainsbourg while everyone else was blabbering on about Chanel. To me, Serge is REAL France.
But I still definitely want a Birkin bag. I've seen some really decent imitations and even if you can shell out the 50K, you still have to wait two years to even GET your bag.
okay, sorry everyone.... i'm still getting the hang of thisssss.@stephanielayme: