Blog

Moving from conspicuous to conscious consumption and doing reviews along the way.  Find plenty of unsponsored reviews of Quince, Everlane, Grana, and Cuyana on the site!  I'm working towards a minimal waste lifestyle, and oh yea I love bags >.<

Goyard GM St. Louis Tote Review {Updated Feb 2018}

My two loves: Airstreams and bags

My two loves: Airstreams and bags

I don't know a whole lot about Goyard and I'm not a super fan of the brand or anything but when I sold my Louis Vuitton Neverfull (because I wasn't a fan of the super rigid leather straps), I decided to replace it with this Goyard St. Louis tote (similar here).  Even though I waxed on and on about used bags last week, I actually got this one brand new at the Goyard store in San Francisco mostly because the prices for the secondhand totes weren't that much cheaper than the original price and because the SF store was so close (this was before I moved down to San Jose).  Also it was most definitely a bit of an impulse purchase because I was in the store.

Anyway I decided to go with the GM size (the bigger size which is 23"x 13"x 7") because I wanted this to be more of a travel bag, and I think it's not too big for my 5'4" frame.  The things I love about this tote: A) super lightweight coated canvas (bags that are light as a feather are a must when traveling); B) The flexible leather straps are thin but don't hurt my shoulders; C) The way the top corners can fold in to make the tote smaller when carrying less stuff.

But in the end I don't really carry this bag as much as I want to because the Goyard tote corners and strap glazing are notoriously fragile.  Plus I'm not a fan of how soft the canvas fabric is, so much so that it can't stand up on it's own (it just wrinkles into a pile really).  And in the end I don't think I'm much of a tote person in general (if I have to carry a lot, I rather carry a backpack).  Oh but I do love my Everlane dipped zip tote (reviewed here), which I carry daily as my work tote.

Anyway so I decided to sell this tote to fund a future bag purchase.  Since I rarely used it (seriously only like 5 times), it doesn't make sense for me to keep it.  And I might as well sell it while it's still in pristine condition.  

{Update: Yep I sold it and actually only "lost" $200 on it so at least these bags have very good resale value.  I consider the $200 the cost of using the bag and learning my lesson about expensive totes.  From now on I think I'll stick with more reasonably priced totes, since tote bags are meant to be workhorses and carry loads of stuff.}