You’re an eBay wizard — can’t believe I basically get a personal secondhand shopper for the low price of only ~$5 a month!! - Libby, paid subscriber <3
The bag I get the most compliments on — and it’s not even close — is a $29 eBay find I scored five years ago.
More than vintage designer or new-this-season or anything in a trendy color, it’s this purse that garners the most “LOVE that bag!” comments from strangers. One friend was so enamored after I wore it to dinner that she hunted down the bag for herself.
It turns out, I had snuck in on the ground floor of a major revival. Scooping this up at the price I did was the vintage mall-brand purse equivalent of getting the last chopper out of ‘nam. What I didn’t realize at time of purchase was that this patchwork leather hobo was TV famous. It belonged first to Ugly Betty’s titular Betty, and in the years since TikTok’s takeover of the trend cycle, it’s become a coveted collector’s item.
The few that are available resale today are listed for several hundred dollars. I had to a double take while researching for this letter — $200+ for 20-year-old Lucky Brand!?
This one, not even an exact, is listed for more than 10 times my 5-years-ago price, and $25 more than the Prada next to it.
Maya Ernest bought her piercing pink Balenciaga City Bag for $250 in 2022 before they exploded in price shortly after. And that’s $50 less than the Lucky above! For a CITY BAG!
If you type “Ugly Betty purse” into Google, it’s Pinterest pins and Reddit threads and Reels videos showing off this very bag, slung cooly over America Ferrera’s shoulder. I’d missed this connection entirely when I bought it (I didn’t have cable growing up so the show sadly passed me by at the time), and it wasn’t until years after owning it did one of these TikToks come across my desk and point out that I was in possession of a prized purse hog.
Listening to the journey one undertakes to buy this bag in 2026… it’s brutal out there! This creator shared that a Poshmark seller sent her an offer of $100 for the bag, then the seller changed the price to $300 after realizing the bag was highly sought after, and she ended up snagging one elsewhere for $70. A deal compared to $220, but that should nooooot be the benchmark.
I’ve read enough comment sections to know people are still occasionally scoring these at their local thrifts for cheap, but the online resale market is a bloodbath. One has to have monk-like dedication to be the first buyer on the sub $50 listings that pop up every so often.
This is a constant churning cycle in the fashion industry: an item is released, its value plummets as the style loses relevance, and something brings it back from the dead to skyrocket resale prices. It happens often with bags (like the aforementioned City Bag) but not as often in the non-luxury sector. This one in particular has a special sauce.
Is it the big brass rings that frame the armpit just so? The braided leather handle, a perfect length to fit comfortably taught over the shoulder? Its stellar capacity to fit a laptop plus? Or the patchwork leather and suede, like a cozy grandma quilt tucking you into a moth-ball induced afternoon nap?
The real sauce might just be thanks to Betty herself, whose self-assured style and fearlessness in the face of the fashion industry inspired so many waves of women after her. Without her eye it might have instead ended up another tragic skeleton in the 2000s trend graveyard. Thank god for a girl who thrifts.
Below the fold: 37 patchwork leather bags and Lucky Brand styles that haven’t been hit with the virality tax (yet)
All under $100, and for one lucky reader I found the XL version of my exact Ugly Betty bag for only $45…
you could grab a yearly paid sub AND the ugly betty bag I sourced for you under $100… crazy…