In Spades

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Mansur Gavriel handbags. People either love them or hate them. Personally, I love their simplistic design, high quality material, durability and moderate price point for a designer bag. I carry mine frequently. Love them or hate them, procuring one is even more controversial. Demand is high and supply is kept purposely low. For some, the exclusivity and complicated process of obtaining one is a major turn off. For me, it’s a fun challenge. After three failed attempts to get my hands on one during a restock, I finally succeeded. Here is what I learned. Forewarning, these tips are a little crazy, but if you’ve been trying in vain to get one, I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1) Timing
Many websites will tell you that scoring a Mansur Gavriel bag favors the prompt. As I learned the first three times, prompt can be a relative term. Let me unpack it for you.

The restock goes live at 11am ET. Rather than waiting until the clock on your computer hits 11am, begin refreshing the page 5 minutes prior. And when I say refresh the page, I mean consistently hit the refresh button for five consecutive minutes starting at 10:55am.

Yes, it’s totally obsessive. And yes, you’ll need to totally clear your calendar for those five minutes. No checking email, taking a phone call, etc. You are glued to your screen. Each time I was able to purchase a bag, I got in before the clock on my computer hit 11am.

2) No browsing
This should be obvious, but before the magic hour arrives you need to know exactly what bag you want to purchase. There will be zero time to click through the colors or sizes of a certain style once you actually get in.

The Mansur Gavriel site is currently up, so do your browsing now. I even recommend doing a trial run. Want the mini bucket in black/ballerina? You should know that style is the 6th one down on the list and the color black is the 3rd style over. Again, totally crazy and obsessive, but it works.

Also, this is not the time to be greedy or to be gracious and offer to buy one for a friend who can’t get to her computer at 11am. The whole process moves so fast that you’ll only have time to add one bag to your cart before it’s too late. One bag per customer or it’s “no soup for you!”

3) Copy/Paste Shortcuts
Type out your credit card number in a Word document and copy it. When the time comes to enter that information, simply hit [Ctrl v for PC, Command v for Mac] to paste it into the appropriate field. You can type [Ctrl v] much faster than you can type your 16-digit credit card number. Every second counts.

4) Grace Period
After a lot of backlash from potential customers, Mansur Gavriel announced that each person would get a 5-minute grace period to checkout once a bag had been added to their cart. My advice? Don’t trust it.

During each of my failed attempts to score a bag, I had what I wanted in my cart and got kicked out while entering my billing information. Perhaps my computer was being glitchy or I temporarily entered the Bermuda Triangle, but the grace period didn’t work for me. If you get a bag into your cart, move baby, move!

So after all of this crazy and obsessive behavior, what if you still didn’t manage to get a bag?

Email Mansur Gavriel customer service and ask them which of their stockists will be carrying the style and color bag you want. I found their customer service to be incredibly kind and helpful. Once you get that list, start calling each of those stores and add your name to their waiting list. You’ll have to wait between 2-4 months (depending on the store and the bag you want) before the time comes, but at least you’ll be on the list. Each store handles this process differently, but most are first come, first served. So remember, a few months from now when you get a phone call from a number you don’t recognize, answer it. It could be Steven Alan calling to say they have your bag.

Here are some stockists that carry Mansur Gavriel. You can also visit the Stockists link on their website.

Steven Alan
Bird
Net-a-Porter
Bergdorf Goodman
Moda Operandi
Barneys
Matches Fashion

I hope you found this information helpful. May the Force be with you tomorrow.