Both can be in beautiful leather and made in Italy. The difference is not first of all in the object: it is in what you pay for around the object, and in what you are looking for when carrying it.
What a big house sells you
A recognised name, a logo, a network of boutiques, structured after-sales service, and a value as a sign: the bag is identifiable by others. The price includes all of this — distribution, worldwide communication, image — beyond the cost of manufacturing.
What a designer brand sells you
A distinctive design, production in small quantities, a more direct relationship with the person who designs, and a price that mainly reflects the material and the manufacturing. In return: few or no physical boutiques, lower renown, and a bag you choose for itself rather than for what it signals.
The possible common point: manufacturing
Some independent brands have their products made in the same districts, sometimes by workshops that also work for the big houses. WENLIH makes its bags in Scandicci, near Florence, in a workshop with long experience of collaborating with leading brands, with goat leather from a French tannery that supplies luxury houses.
Three questions to know what you want
- Is it important that the bag be recognised? If so, a big house meets this need better.
- Are you looking for a shape few people carry? A designer brand is made for this.
- Where do you want your money to go? Into the leather and the workshop, or also into the image?
Where WENLIH stands
WENLIH is a designer leather goods brand founded in Paris: contemporary design, artisanal manufacturing in Tuscany, prices between €349 and €690. No visible logo, no boutique of its own; a design — the Datura flower, the Vrille tendril — that you recognise by its shape.
Read next: Between €349 and €690: what you pay for · WENLIH, a brand born in Paris