How Many Quilts Have You Killed Today Vera?

Dear Ms. Vera Bradley,
Hello. You don’t know me (and after you read this letter you won’t want to know me), but I’m an unemployed 25 year old female living in Ohio. I wanted to write you today to express my extreme displeasure/outrage involving your manufacturing process. It is blatantly clear that you are the (decidedly loaded) evil tsarina in charge of a handbag regime in which countless quilts are abused and more often than you’d probably like to admit, murdered. Yes…I’m aware of your heinous secret…you are a patchwork-loving homicidal maniac and I want you to know that I am whole-heartedly against your practices. It’s bad enough that you destroy the very quilted fabric that this country was built upon, but to parade it around in the form of handbags, totes, suitcases and other various zippered receptacles is inexcusable. From this day forward I am starting a one-woman crusade entitled SOQ:VB=M (Save Our Quilts: Vera Bradley=Murder). Consider yourself warned Ms. Bradley.
With sincere contempt,
An employed 25 year old female living in Ohio

If I were to compose a letter to Vera Bradley (is she even a real person? am I focusing my anger on a figment of imagination?) that is most likely how it would look. Why such hate you may wonder. Such anger for a person you do not even know. Don’t fool yourselves. Vera has brainwashed you too, brainwashed you into thinking you need her fancy quilted bags to be fashionable in 2009. Right now, hundreds and hundreds of Vera-crazed ladies are lining up to wreak havoc on mind-numbingly patterned, quilted bags. Oh yes, there is a massive Vera sale going on in Fort Wayne, Indiana…the birthplace of the regime. You know, I’m an advocate of personal safety in the form of pepper spray…but I fear that these Vera Nuts (otherwise known as our normally docile mothers, aunts, grandmas) will use it on one another to get to that paisley-patterned makeup case. I feel like I can hear it now. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones are talking pleasantly in line about their favorite size and model of Vera bag.

“You know Joan, I just go crazy for that flowered mid-sized pocketbook!” to which Joan replies

“Phyllis I couldn’t agree more. Vera’s latest fabric patterns have been precious! Did you even see that gorgeous plaid one with the cardinals and robins on the trim?”

These are nice sentiments from two gals I’m sure we could venture to call Granny Joan and Auntie Phyllis. But just you wait. They open those doors to the bag wholesale and it becomes a quilted massacre. Joan and Phyllis (and all the other nice gals) become blood-thirsty Vera fanatics.

“I saw that pink striped glasses case first Joan! You nasty slut!”
“Shut the fuck up Phyllis. It’s mine. I’m gonna pummel your fat ass.”
“Oh really? You lay a finger on it and you’re gonna see my fist comin’ at your dome!”
“Don’t test me bitch! It’s a limited edition. I’ve killed for less.”

Alright, alright. That was really dramatic. But honestly, even if they don’t actually act out that violent scene you know they’re thinking it. Somehow the quilted bags of Vera Bradley have become something of a pop-culture phenomenon. What you’d think would just be a small faction of middle aged to elderly ladies with a love for these bags has manifested itself into an all-age fashion accessory binge.

If you are a fan I apologize for the following assessment, but again, it’s just my own opinion. I personally (if you can’t tell) am not a fan of them…aesthetically speaking. Quite frankly I think they’re ugly. But what bothers me most about this quilted-mess is that someone thought up the idea to hack apart and sew together bags (which look like blankets) and is now a bajallionaire. And people actually pay shit-tons of money for something my grandma could make in a half hour! (I’m probably just jealous that I didn’t think of it first. You know…if I’d thought up gaucho pants or scrunchies or some other putrid fashion, I wouldn’t be so damn hoity-toity about hating them so much because I’d be a tanning in Barbados right now outside my luxury villa. So go ahead and hold that against me. Rightly so.)

I also don’t really understand young women who carry them around. I can see how a more mature lady would dig them. That’s cool with me. Get on with your fancy-bag-carrying-bad-self mom. But I saw them daily at my undergraduate institution. I’ll admit that some patterns bordered on “cute” or “permissible.” But girlfriend, you’re 20 years old…do you really think that carrying a quilted purse with hens and roosters on it is the epitome of sexiness? I can’t imagine how deluded your mind is if you think so.

*Sidenote: I will make an exception for the breast cancer awareness Vera Bags. I won’t hate on anyone who has one of those because it’s for a great cause. I’ll admit I’m a sardonic bitch at times but I’ve certainly got a heart. During the LiveStrong uproar I owned so many of those multi-colored bracelets I looked like a damn Rainbow Brite doll. Hell, if someone made an IBS awareness Croc maybe I’d buy it. (Seriously, I have loved ones with IBS. Trust this, you don’t want the words “irritable” and “bowel” in the name of a disease YOU have.) *End of Sidenote

Anyhow…I think I’ve made I certainly clear that Vera ain’t my favorite gal. But you know what…go wit it’. If you love you some quilted bags…then be my guest. But then again…I might attack you on the street cause I’m on a mission to reconstruct the quilts of America. And your patterned paisley-shit cosmetics bag is just what I need to finish my blanket.