After a successful first round in July, the good folks at RueLaLa are staging another irresistible Madison Avenue Couture event. The big sale launches tomorrow, September 9th and the selection of designer bags, shoes and accessories include brands like Gucci, Prada, Armani, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and many more. We can expect a vast variety of styles, with prices ranging from $200 to $2,000.

This is not one to miss. Grab an invite and make sure to hit the event early, as desired pieces vanish off the virtual racks in minutes.

Sign up for RueLaLa here!

Dresses were pulled, stars were dressed, Johnny Weir was fabulous, The Rodge was a total and utter buffoon for an hour. In some ways, this show doesn’t change a whole lot from episode to episode. It’s kind of a one-trick pony, but luckily I love that one trick.

Last time we saw our fashion warriors, they were in Milan and, well, they’re still there! Very little time-lapse between these fashion week episodes, eh? It was Armani/Gucci/Pucci day in Italy and Rodger ate some pasta, apparently for breakfast. Italians: do you guys really eat pasta for breakfast? If so, I’m jealous. I may even be more jealous of the copious pasta consumption than I was of the fashion show attendance. I’m on a diet, so I feel like that’s entirely justified.

Unfortunately for Rachel, after the last three shows in Milan all of her clients were still going naked to the Oscars, except for maybe Demi. It must be difficult to pick dresses for the most scrutinized fashion event in the world, particularly when you know that most of the scrutinizers don’t react well to anything but straightforward glamour. At some point during these scenes, some sort of mention was made of The Rodge and a blow-up doll or something, but I’ve blocked it out of my head because the mental picture was too horrifying.

Back in Los Angles, Rachel was yakking with Brad and Jordan about something or other, and out from the television the words JOHNNY WEIR jumped and hit me in the face. I LOVE JOHNNY WEIR. He so fabulous and unreasonable and totally himself that his inclusion in this episode made me unnaturally happy.

Speaking of “unnaturally happy,” next up was a trip to…jewelry. Van Cleef? I think it was Van Cleef. I don’t remember. There was too much sparkle, and it completely wiped out my ability to think thoughts or form words or use letters. The jewelry man had on a single glove. Single. Glove. With no irony. Admittedly I don’t shop for much fine jewelry, so perhaps that’s common, but it struck me as almost absurdist in its hilarity.

Back at Johnny Weir central, err, the office, Rachel was wearing Joseph The Chicken’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat O’ Feathers in anticipating of Johnny’s arrival and then Johnny Weir put on some high heels and strutted around, at which point I died of an overdose of happy right there. I then came back from the dead, and Brad and Johnny were doing figure skating poses on the floor. It was one big, fantastic, gay lovefest dunked in glitter, and I want to move to whatever planet these people came from.

When things snapped back into reality (if ANYTHING on this show can really be referred to as reality), the blue Pucci dress had been delivered and, uh, there was a feather issue. Major. Feather. Issue. As in, there were feathers, which apparently wasn’t clear on the runway. Also, Ashley was sick. Oscar time isn’t a good time to be sick, since it seemed like Brad basically wanted her fired right then and there. Kinda harsh, but for anyone who has made it through an eleven-hour day by virtue of constant swigs straight from an orange bottle of Dayquil and a $5.99 meatloaf lunch scarfed down in 20 minutes at the diner around the corner (It was also the day after Thanksgiving. INTERNING BLOWS.), the fact that she should have shown up and played hurt was already self-evident at that point.

The dress hunt continued without Ashley, and although Cameron had been confirmed for an Oscar de la Renta dress, Rachel was dependent on Versace to come through so that Demi wouldn’t go naked. Rachel showed up at the atelier to be presented with two dresses: one looked like the (losing) product of a Project Runway challenge where the contestants could only use tin foil and gum wrappers to make couture, and the other one was…heaven. Heaven in a dress. It’s also the one that Demi actually ended up wearing, and I remembered it as soon as Rachel entered the room. THAT’s the sign of a good dress.

While Rachel was later getting groomed to go to a party, The Rodge was in the background as always, pouting and whimpering and feeling sorry for himself because he wasn’t having any fun. He apparently has no problem spending the money that Rachel makes, but he doesn’t want her to be anything but pregnant, quiet and sexually available. Thankfully, Rachel’s hair gay told them both to stop being so awful, although it was mostly just The Rodge who was harshing my mellow.

Things were a little snippy the next morning too, when The Rodge was upset that someone had come to inconvenience him by cutting his hair in his very own apartment and that the Hair Gay was flipping pages in a magazine too loudly and that Rachel was on speakerphone, even though the use of speakerphone is one the the Covenants of Reality Television, as dictated by our supreme overlord Andy Cohen. Rachel finally called him out for it, telling him that all he had to do was have brunch and go to viewing parties and not do any actual work, and he reverted straight back to being a five-year-old. If he had had a ball, he would have gathered it up and gone home. As it was, he sat in the car and took a nap.

The Oscars finally happened and Cameron didn’t miss the carpet and Demi didn’t go naked, and it was all a great triumph. Brad ate some Doritos and cruised some daddies outside of Rachel’s building, and then he and Rachel had a little celebration while The Rodge continued to act irritated and roll his eyes so hard that I’m surprised they didn’t get stuck that way.

EXCEPT, WAIT. FASHION EMERGENCY. JOHNNY WEIR IS WEARING THE SAME THING AS ANOTHER PERSON AT HIS TABLE AT THE ELTON JOHN PARTY.

But before we talk about that, can we talk about the Johnny Weir Bluefly commercial that happened at approximately this point in the show (at least on the East Coast) for a second? The Balenciaga tree? I died for the second time this episode. You guys know how much of a Balenciaga fangirl I am, and he had such AMAZING COLORS. And he had Joseph The Chicken’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat O’ Feathers! Which he got in this episode! But not from Bluefly, so that’s sort of false advertising, right? Kinda?

Anyway, the suit thing with Johnny wasn’t Team Zoe’s doing, but Brad saved the day by referencing the perfect episode of Beverly Hills 90210 and sending a bunch of blazers over to the event. Don’t you wish you had a friend like that, who could just make a bunch of fabulous clothes appear when you’re feeling insecure about your outfit?

Unfortunately, the episode just couldn’t end on a good note. It had to end on a Rodger note. He was back again, complaining about the Oscars and how they weren’t important even though they’re basically the most important thing that Rachel’s company, of which he is the president, does all year. He also nearly backhanded her for calling him Mr. Zoe and then told her that he just wanted her to have a kid so that he’d have a buddy. HEY RODGE, NOT A GREAT REASON TO HAVE A KID THAT YOUR WIFE DOESN’T REALLY WANT.

I know that the entire thing was supposed to have a sarcastic undertone, but, uh, there was a little too much non-sarcasm in there for me. The Rodge is whiney, petulant and not terribly mature, and I honestly don’t know why Rachel puts up with it. I get the impression that she might be better off single and able to fully enjoy her gaggle of girls and gays. Wouldn’t we all.

Don’t tell that to the designers of the Abaco Jamily Python Crossbody, though. This bag might not be from a big-name designer, but the materials used are a nice reminder that it’s not just the name-y labels who can make a fine exotic bag. The kicker? It costs barely over $1000.

The bag isn’t all python, but that’s a pretty big piece of lovely natural snakeskin, if you ask me. The shoulder strap also has significant python details, and that’s how I would carry the bag – forget the crossbody strap. I’d love this bag even more if there were a black and grey (or maybe metallic gunmetal?) color combination, but as it is, it’s a little luxury for a lower price than one might expect. Buy through Bloomingdale’s for $1025.

For all of you who watched The Rachel Zoe Project last week, this bag will ring a bell. Behold, the Missoni Chicken Foot Bag that Rachel made a very sour face at while in the Missoni showroom. I was on a personal mission to find the bag and make fun of it myself. I figured it would be ghastly and almost disturbing to look at.

But a funny thing happened. Once I saw the bag I found it, well, somewhat intriguing.

There is this odd mixture of materials and textures and colors which somehow partially works. You look at the bag and realize it is perfectly Missoni. If you study the front pocket, you can see the chicken feet being used, but if you have the ability to keep yourself from focusing on that aspect, you might find yourself enjoying the quirkiness of the bag as well.

Ok, so this bag is a massive mish-mosh of colors and ideas. And while I called it quirky many will call it tacky. But on some level, it kind of, sort of, partially, maybe, possibly works. I think most of me gives this bag lots of leeway because it is far less awful than I imagined it would be. It may not be for 98.9% of us, but I can imagine a fashionable woman who takes chances with her accessories wearing this outside of Paris fashion week. I want to see someone carry this bag. More via Missoni.com.

Word is that the next season of this trainwreck of a show is set to start filming soon (yes, already), but before we see them come around again, it’s time to figure out what, if anything, we were able to learn from our Garden State girls during this debacle of a season. Since it’s more or less impossible to “recap” five four people yelling at each other with no narrative arc or plot, we’ll be breaking things down a little differently this time.

“Nephew” is apparently a euphemism for “bastard child of your husband and his mistress.” Word on the street that Danielle’s reference to Teresa not acknowledging her “nephew” during the first part of the reunion was actually her way of calling out the open secret of Juicy Joe’s affair and child with some other Jerseyite. It’s really too bad, because apparently the child is the boy that Joe always wanted, but his illegitimacy means that he will never be able to inherent the throne of King Juicy or take up residency in the conference center that Joe and Teresa call a house.

Danielle finally got her weave game locked up. Also, she has a new Chanel bag. Finally. That black one we saw all season was getting a little ratty.

Teresa is strong like ox. This reunion was probably humiliating for Andy Cohen in a lot of ways, but getting thrown into a chair by a stiletto-wearing mom of four approximately nine minutes in to the two-parter had to be at the top of the list of reasons.

Danielle doesn’t live in objective reality. It was offensive when Teresa’s husband said “gaylord,” but it wasn’t offensive when Danny The Ex-Con said “f****t.” Teresa has to take responsibility for a third party’s words, but Danielle can’t be held responsible for what her friend said on camera. Danielle didn’t respond to a tweeted wish that Jacqueline’s daughter killed herself, despite the fact that Jacqueline had verifiable proof with her (there’s an app for that). Her sex tape? Of course it wasn’t filmed by a third party or ever intended to be released. In Danielle’s world, the grass is blue and cows say oink.

Jacqueline has no sense of relevancy. Throughout the entire reunion, if the other housewives were talking about something amongst themselves and she hadn’t gotten to say anything in a while, Jacqueline would come completely out of left field with some comment about text messages or Danielle’s kids crying at school or her thoughts on deficit spending and the credit crisis and all of her cast mates would fall silent for a second while their brain gears creaked and shivered into their next position in order to figure out how Jacqueline’s comments related to what they had been talking about and whether or not they should respond. She also forces me to write run-on sentences that would make my 12th grade AP English teacher cry.

Andy Cohen runs like a girl. Self-explanatory. If any of you are graphically inclined, I’d like to have a GIF of his cross-stage scamper. Please and thank you.

Danielle travels with extra weave. Andy Cohen was fascinated by the weave-attachment mechanism, and then he was nearly unable to wrench the extensions from the fake head. Yes, she also travels with a fake head. In a bag. I wonder if Andy Cohen ever thought his career would go this way when he was in broadcasting school.

Kim G. had some work done in anticipation of her return to reality television. She looked good! It was good work! She should refer Danielle to her surgeon. To return the favor, maybe Danielle can refer Kim G. to her weavologist.

Caroline does a pretty good Atticus Finch impression. She was a lawyer in another life, possibly. She shut down Kim G. when Kim complained about how she had been seated at the Brownstone, and in perhaps the first such admission in Housewives history, Kim admitted she was right and that Caroline didn’t actually do anything wrong. I may have shouted “PREACH!” at the television while Caroline was doing this.

Danielle might have a soul after all. It’s just two sizes too small. Jacqueline has one too, now that I mention it. Toward the end, Jacqueline seemed to have a Come To Jesus moment and copped to saying inappropriate things about Danielle and participating in the drama when she shouldn’t have, and Danielle tearfully admitted that she spread false information and lied about Jacqueline because she was angry and hurt. She even apologized. Repeated viewings of Criminal Minds tell me that sociopaths can often skillfully mimic emotions, but I want to believe that Danielle was being genuine. Maybe I just want to believe that any of these people are indeed capable of a full range of emotions, including ones that aren’t some sort of subcategory of “rage.” And no, Teresa, “compulsive shopping” doesn’t qualify as an emotion.

Caroline, however, didn’t buy it. Danielle hugged Jacqueline and Teresa and shook Caroline’s hand and apologized to all three, but Caroline called shenanigans on the entire thing and did some more yelling, just for good measure. She’s probably wise to be dubious, but I was willing to suspend disbelief until at least the end of the episode in order to have a happy ending. Even a fake one. At this point in the Real Housewives oeuvre, I’m willing to settle for fake.

Andy Cohen LIED to us. What I’m not willing to settle for, however, is an unfulfilled promise that someone will quit the show. Worry not, though, because I was on my computer at 1:18 in the morning (blogging is hard) when Andy decided to let us all know via Twitter – it’s Danielle. Her appearance on the reunion will be her last appearance as a housewife, confirming the rumors we’d been hearing for quite a while. So maybe when she whispered sweet nothings in Jacqueline’s ear about how the drama was over, she meant it. Or maybe she got fired. You decide which one is more likely.

I don’t know if Danielle’s dismissal was left out of the show because of an accident of editing or if they had always intended to release the information in the middle of the night so that only the people who watched the show on a DVR delay after the end of the Boise State/Virginia Tech football game (guilty as charged) would see it, but we have our answer, and now it’s time for us to all pretend like none of this ever happened. And if it did, we certainly didn’t spend hours watching it and discussing it.

Thanks for joining me this season, and make sure to check back next Tuesday for the beginning of our Gossip Girl recaps for the season and, of course, Fridays for Real Housewives of DC.

I’ve been very up on the brand recently, as my previous posts about Prada’s Fall/Winter 2010 collection would indicate, but the Prada Vitello Shine Fringe Satchel makes me feel like 2008 just came back and hit me in the face.

There are only three good things about this bag, and they are as follows:

1. It’s black and black is fairly unoffensive.
2. The leather is probably nice.
3. It probably won’t give you VD.

Other than that, it’s all kinds of fail. Not only is fringe basically over, but Prada chose to implement it in what appears to be the messiest, least aesthetically appealing way possible. If they want some advice on how to update this tired trend, they should go talk to Nanette Lepore before doing something like this again. And now, for the final assault on good taste: this thing costs $2750 via Saks.

Coach has asked PurseBlog’s Megs to be a guest blogger on coach.com for the month of October. We want to include our PurseBlog readers in guest blogging for Coach by having you help tell us your favorite bag from the upcoming Madison collection.

PurseBlog will be covering the new collection, set to launch September 29th, and we will feature whatever bag our PurseBlog readers and TPF members choose – along with a matching giveaway (which will coincide with the guest blog on Coach.com).

Please let us know your favorite from the collection by voting in this poll. Thank you!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Click the images for a full-sized view with the name of the bag!

Nothing says “Friday afternoon” like a post about Paris Hilton getting arrested immediately following one about college football (all tangentially purse-related, of course). We hope that all of you are enjoying the day before your long weekend as much as those of us here at PurseBlog are.

As we all know by now, celebutante Paris Hilton got herself arrested in Vegas last weekend for knocking some cocaine out of her purse in front of a cop (allegedly). Most people didn’t wonder what kind of purse she might have been carrying at the time, but I did. And now, thanks to Gawker.com and People magazine, I have my answer – her bag was Chanel. Or her friend’s bag, or whatever.

She claimed that the coke wasn’t hers because the bag wasn’t hers and the friend who had last used it had left it in there, but the purse that appears in her arrest photos also appears on her Twitter feed – as a new purchase that she made back in July. There’s a lesson here: you should keep your new bags off the Internet if you plan to use them in the alleged commission of crimes.

Thus concludes your weekly installment of trashy pop culture, since Real Housewives of DC didn’t have a new episode last night.

While this sale is titled the end of summer sale, let’s just call it what it is: the last sale of Bird Handbags… EVER. At least under that name. We introduced you to Bird Handbags at the end of 2007. The easy, laid back designs have a distinct upscale vibe to them; the line’s look is very haute hippy. The smaller designer line was gathering some eyes online.

But a problem arose when Juicy Couture named their new line Bird. After Liz Carey, designer of Bird Handbags, reached out to Juicy Couture informally about the issue, Carey realized she would need to sue the company. And then ensued a fight that seemed like a sure-win for Carey, but it was not.

Carey told Fashionista.com in an interview on this subject, “I want people to support young designers. I trademarked my company and did everything I was supposed to do. It’s a good lesson for people who want to start a brand, to know this and know that it’s out there. A big conglomerate shouldn’t be allowed to do this.”

With expenses getting out of hand, Carey decided to stop her fight and rename her company. Bird Handbags will no longer be Bird Handbags, rather Liz Carey Bags.

In order to sell out the last of the official Bird Handbags stock, Liz Carey is offering her notably hippie chic bags at significantly marked down prices. We have the sale info for all of you as Liz wanted to share this with PurseBlog readers! Support a great lady and her beautiful bags at marked down prices!

Shop the Bird Handbags End Sale now!

In a wild anticipatory stupor on the eve of tomorrow’s arrival of college football (I know it technically started yesterday, but it doesn’t start for me until my University of Georgia Bulldogs play), I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning last night reading Every Day Should Be Saturday and trying to come up with a football-themed version of “The Night Before Christmas” to share with you people today. My compositional efforts were mostly for naught, so I figured I’d write a post about handbags instead, since I have a sneaking suspicion that most of y’all don’t care about college football.

I’m not exactly sure how I came to be a football-obsessed fashion blogger, although it more or less ensures that I’m pissing off approximately half of my Twitter followers at any given time. But since it’s Friday and I’m feeling hopeful (or maybe I just shotgunned a beer while standing on my couch with my face painted red and black – you’ll never know!), I thought I’d pick some bags that fans of various teams might want to carry to their various tailgating festivities this season. If your preferred team isn’t represented here, let us know who you root for in the comments and whether or not you have a bag that goes with with your football allegiance. GO DAWGS. Sorry, I can’t help it.

I’m a proud alumna (ABJ ’08) of America’s #1 party school, the University of Georgia, so that’s where we’ll start. Finding a bag in Georgia red is difficult, not to mention finding one that’s both functional and attractive, but the Valentino Premier Bow Hobo is just that. I’ve loved this design for several season, and seeing it come in such a perfect, true red make me love it even more. Plus, it’s big enough to carry a fifth of Maker’s Mark (or your adult beverage of choice, no judgment here) comfortably, and that’s an important consideration when choosing a bag for game days. If you’re not lucky enough to be a Georgia Bulldog, this bag could also work for fans of Texas Tech, Utah, Louisville, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Rutgers. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $1895.

When I think of football, I think of the SEC, but we have readers from around the country and I intend to share the football-handbag love with as many of them as possible. For Penn State fans, finding the right shade of blue can likely be as difficult as finding Georgia red, but I think the Salvatore Ferragamo Meditterraneo Sophia Satchel is pretty close. The blue is a medium shade but not too bright, and it could also find a potential home with fans of Florida, Kentucky, Boise State and Pitt. Buy through Saks for $1650.

Sometimes a bag comes along in a very specific color combination or material that can only be applied to one team. Last year, that was Alexander McQueen’s houndstooth tote for Alabama, and this year, it’s the Versace Leather and Suede Satchel for TCU. Black and purple is a bold color choice that not many college teams make and not many designers think to combine on handbags, but the underdog Top 10 team has a design to call its very own this season. Buy through Saks for $2950.

A good green bag is harder to find than one would think, but luckily for fans of Oregon, Michigan State and Marshall, the Tory Burch Dena Messenger Bag is almost the perfect color. Crossbodies are handy to have while traversing a college campus in search of your drunk friend who wandered off (why is this friend always the one who has the tickets?), but it also means that you can’t carry a whole lot with you. Your ticket, cell phone, sunglasses and keys are really all you need, though, right? Buy through Net-a-Porter for $365.

Since I’m a Georgia fan, orange isn’t exactly my favorite football color, but for fans of Tennessee it’s really the only gameday option available. For some reason, Longchamp thought that bright orange would be a perfect color for a handbag, and the Longchamp 4×4 Leather Tote was born. A basic tote in a solid color actually isn’t a bad game day option at all, so fans of Clemson, Florida and Oregon State might want to take note. Buy through Saks for $460.

Dark red is one of the most versatile and widely beloved colors in sports fandom. Whether it’s called crimson, scarlet or just plain ol’ maroon (boring), teams from coast to coast might be interested in the Givenchy Antigona Tote. I picked this one especially for the preseason #1 and defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide (it’s even in their name!), but it would also find a spot in the closets of Ohio State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Indiana and South Carolina. Buy through Luisa Via Roma for $2268.