My Love Affair With Louis

By Morgan Sipp

Bags over boyfriends.

The moment I saw the big yellow box with the bright blue ribbon emerge from under the table, I couldn’t wait to open it. I had just graduated from high school and was celebrating with family, friends and my boyfriend over dinner at a local restaurant. I took the box from my parents. I already knew what was inside: a Louis Vuitton Neverfull tote, Articles de Voyages edition.

Opening the box, I was overcome with pure joy. Everyone could see it, including my boyfriend. Later, he admitted it was the moment he knew our relationship wouldn’t last. “You never looked at me the way you looked at that bag,” he said.

And it was true.

Photo Courtesy of Morgan Sipp

Throughout my entire senior year of high school, I had dreamed of this tote. I’d been saving all year so I could have it in time for college. I was working a minimum-wage job, though, so the saving was slow-going. I didn’t know that my parents would end up buying me the bag for graduation, so I skipped a lot of activities with my friends that year to save money. My friends didn’t understand why I would spend so much money on a tote bag. But they didn’t understand its importance the way I did.

In 1854, a trunk maker named Louis Vuitton launched his eponymous brand in Paris to custom-make luxury trunks for upper-crust travelers. By 1913, it had become the largest travel goods store in the world, and by the 1930s, it had branched into handbags. 

Released in 2007, the Neverfull was among the brand’s most successful handbag launches, according to Sothebys.com. It was designed to be practical for everyday use – it’s reversible and can hold everything you need – about 200 pounds of it, in fact.

The standard Neverfull comes in three sizes and canvas or signature Epi leather. The bag I coveted was a special edition Neverfull emblazoned with a giant “V” and the phrase, “Volez, Voguez, Voyagez, Avec de Valises Louis Vuitton,” which translates to “Fly, Sail, Travel with Louis Vuitton Suitcases.” To me, the brand represented elegant travel, and the bag represented a future of travel, adventure and fashion that I hoped awaited me after I left home.

I have now spent over three years with the bag, and everything I hoped I would experience with it has happened. I am studying fashion media, and last summer, I lived in Barcelona and traveled almost every weekend. This bag was the only thing I brought with me to dozens of countries, and I could fit everything in it that I needed for each trip.

My Neverfull is still the best gift I have ever received. In May, I’ll be going out to dinner with my parents again to celebrate my graduation – this time from SMU. I’m not sure yet what my next step will be, but I know that wherever it is, my Neverfull will be the perfect way to bring along whatever I’ll need.

Lucy Ladis

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