Per usual, I’ve come across a few of these bags over the years, but only semi-recently thought to take photos XD Most of the time (when I was inspecting bags before), it was really just for myself and my mom’s and my sister’s benefit. It’s only when I finished studying and also started blogging about it that I remembered to actually document the inspections haha.

Fendi’s By The Way bag is a pretty practical style and shape, and there have been many iterations (much cuter than this one) over the years that have been really cute and interesting. This was around the time from a few years ago when I felt there was a huge resurgence from Fendi (since the baguette) of really cute and imaginative designs, most notably the peekaboo, but also including the 2jours, 3jours, bag bugs and monster bags, the dot com bag, and this by the way bag. All of which were of good “standard” make (meaning decent and consistent machine sewn bags but not hand-sewn ultra luxe level), so pretty fair in price compared to similarly tiered bags like Celine or Givenchy etc. (these bags were popular around the same time as Celine’s Boston bag and phantom and box bag, and Givenchy’s Antigona)

This particular leather might stain/scratch over time, but I still think it’s a very practical bag style and size. Stitch consistency and edge finishes were good. Nickel plated brass hardware. Button shoulder strap adjustment. Top handle plus detachable strap, zip closure. I don’t know if I’d go full price for this, I’d probably try to score it at an outlet if I find one of the designs or colorways I really liked from before. But for those who are looking at this bag, it’s a pretty lightweight and practical bag with decent quality.

SIDE NOTE: If you see versions of Fendi bags that feature those thick running stitches, THOSE parts in particular are hand-stitched. I think this is the case for the bags in their “selleria” collection? They are probably more of decorative than functional though, like they put them there to be able to say they were hand-stitched but it’s not actually the whole bag? But they are primarily decorative because they’ve only done one side of stitches, thus the “running stitch” look where the stitches have skips, and not a full row of stitches. So they are a nice-to-have feature, but don’t pay up for them because they don’t functionally add anything to the strength of the bag, unless the hand-stitching is actually on seams or handles or gussets :))

This is an example of what I mean: