Sunday, October 09, 2005

"Vegan leather" in "Bococa"

So I did it. I got the green bag. It is this, but emerald green, and so much cooler than it looks in this picture. (I will do something about my camera-battery situation soon so I can capture the actual bag in all its glory.) The woman at the Court St. boutique where I got it told me in great detail about how the bag is Canadian, of which I approved, myself being 1/4 Canadian, and about how it is "vegan leather." Does it make me a bad person that my first thought was, "aha, that's why it's not $400" and not "good, I feel so virtuous"? I mean, I had Korean beef bulgogi barbeque for lunch (proof that Little Neck, Queens, is no longer garlic-free), and was wearing knee-high leather boots when buying the bag, so I could hardly pretend to have chosen it for such noble reasons. Regardless, never have I seen such leather-like plastic, and never have I owned so fabulous, so green a bag. It is apparently the new "it" bag, at least among "Bococa" shoppers.

Which brings me to the obvious question: What is "Bococa"? Isn't it just that which lies between Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights and is cheaper and consequently hipper than that which surrounds it? Since when did that expanse get a veggie-burger-esque name? Pardon my Manhattanite/Chicagoan provinciality, but I had not realized this area existed. I had been to Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens, which is apparently the same as "Bococa" plus Boerum Hill, but had no idea that this was an area comparable to Paris's Marais neighborhood, superchic and with superchic-looking French pastries. I'd obviously turned before reaching the right street when I was in the area before. In any case, I'm now $85 plus tax behind where I had been, but it was so, so worth it. Even if the bag in question is synthetic.

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