You may want to get a close look at the lining of a woman's purse before you decide to become friends. In a new book titled The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone -- Including Ourselves, professor and author Dan Ariely makes an interesting connection between carrying fake designer bags and lying. His research found that women and men who were OK making people believe that their Gocci bag was really a Gucci bag were more inclined to lie, cheat, and steal in all other facets of life. The crux being that if you can cheat the real designers out of money, and fool yourself and others into thinking you can afford something you can't, then your moral compass is likely compromised in more areas than just that one.
Who knew that a fake bag could say so much about a person? I'll admit I've carried a black market purse or two in my day. I was in college when I got a fake Dior bag. I suppose the reason I carried it was a combination of wanting to look cool, wanting to look stylish, and wanting to let people know that I had an appreciation for style and luxury, even though I couldn't afford it. I mean, when your only source of income is a babysitting gig and all your disposable income goes to warm cans of Miller Lite, a Dior bag is solidly out of the question.
I get that carrying that bag made me a liar, but I think the main motivation wasn't to deceive people and make them think I was wealthier than I was, I think I wanted the bag to display, albeit illegally, that I was into fashion. And it wasn't the (fake) Dior label that tickled my fancy, it was the design, the shape, the color, the hardware, the size, the way it fell, the way it felt, and the way it made me feel that got me going. I used the purse to show off my self-proclaimed eye for style, not to pretend I was rich.
Maybe I'm starting to sound even more guilty by justifying my reasons for carrying a contraband bag of lies. That's not good.
Point is, if you're a cold hard facts kinda lady, you might want to stay away from fake-bag-wearing women. Basically they're (we're?) all liar, liar pants on fire. Just, you know, maybe cut a girl a break if it was an experimental phase in college, K?
Have you ever worn a fake designer bag? What do you think of people who do?
Photo via queenbeeofbeverlyhills/Flickr
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Comments 19
2. Buying a knockoff doesn't make you a liar. Lieing and saying its a designer bag makes you a liar.
The point of the study wasn't that people who BOUGHT them are "bad". But that people who will lie about something so trivial, are more prone to lieing about bigger things as well. If you lie about affording a designer bag, you'll lie about other money issues.
I own knockoffs, I don't say they're real Gucci or Prada. I say, "I got this cute bag for 10$ at the swap meet".
I buy something because I like it. Not because of what it says on the label. Whether it's a knock of or not, I bought and paid for it so I'm not lying to anyone.
I used to own fake designer bags when I was younger and now that I own the real deals it's embarassing to think what I was carrying before passed as real. Just save for a few months and buy the real thing - anyone that owns a real LV will spot it right away.
Ditto to the4mutts!
I don't carry anything but a diaper bag but this post is STUPID. Some people don't give a fuck about labels and like the look of the bag, so they buy it for less. get over it.