Louis Vuitton ONTHEGO Tote in Monogram Empreinte Leather Honest Review

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Louis Vuitton. Soaring prices, underwhelming quality, more money spent on marketing than product, and so common despite being so expensive (doesn’t that sound like literally every other big brand out there?? hahahahaha)– but alas, my mom still buys and loves the brand (I think it’s mostly 80s nostalgia tho tbh). But thanks to her, I can inspect and photograph to my blog’s delight. So here we go, a bit of a deeper dive into the ONTHEGO tote in monogram empreinte leather. We were the ones who made the purchase on her behalf, and although we were trying to dissuade her from yet another LV tote (on the grounds that she barely uses her other LV totes), in the end, this was the version we could live with–an all black leather one. I absolutely cannot stand the bicolor one–to me, it looks so cheap especially with the ridiculously oversized branding. The brown monogram one (in the classic LV damier/monogram colors) looks even worse because it looks like a counterfeit product. But anyway, to each their own. This deeper dive isn’t about the design, but the make.

Oh, before getting to the make. Let’s talk about customer service. We bought this at the Florence branch of LV, near Palazzo Strozzi. The system they have in place is ridiculously inefficient in a lot of ways. If you’re in a hurry, skip this place. They have this weird system now where each person who enters needs to give their name etc. to a tablet-wielding associate, and then you’re just left to wander aimlessly until another associate comes to find you (presumably, a quick description of you was taken note of by the Tablet associate–I shudder to think what sort of descriptors they use to identify customers, because just putting “Asian” could describe literally 75% of the customers in store). You have no idea of the length of the queue in front of you, so you could be waiting a while, as we did. On the plus side, once you’ve got an associate with you, then they serve only you. In this case, it’s also the luck of the draw what kind of associate you happen to pair with. Ours was nice enough, and I was happy that despite the pandemic blocking my trips to Italy for a few years, my meager Italian was still earnest enough to buy me some rapport with the locals and get better service (a sad reality but there you go) in several shops/ restaurants/ places around Italy. Anyway, back to the bag.

On the bag’s side gussets, the empreinte is smaller–the size of the print on the Sofia Coppola bags (which my mom also has–I should look for it so I can take photos of that too haha). This size of logo print is less obscene than the oversized one haha.

Each top corner is reinforced with a little strap and rivet.

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Inside, a suede-like lining such as maialino (pigskin) or so I thought. But when I checked the site, it lists “microfiber lining” which means it’s not even leather!

Some open pockets as well as a zippered pocket. There are shoulder-length straps that fold into the bag when not in use, and a small carabiner and D-ring to hold the bag more closed when needed.

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Interior label:

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Branded carabiner:

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Branded zipper pull

Flat pocket. Because they layered the open pockets onto the zippered pocket, I don’t think you could actually fit too much inside.

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Now let’s take a look at one of the problem areas I spotted, where the top handles attach to the rectangular ring that attaches to the bag body

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Machine-sewn, but the ends were probably finished by hand. The stitches look consistent enough, but here is where I was surprised to find such a level of unfinished work:

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If you look at where the leather strap folds over the metal ring, you can see a glaring oversight:

I mean, wtf. I wonder if this is just the case with this unit (I will try to drop by a Louis Vuitton here to check out some other units), or if this is because of how they constructed the bag. If the former, then I will try to have it replaced. If the latter, then this is bad f*ckin’ news and a real scam. Now, I don’t want to sound overly dramatic. Technically speaking, the edge paint doesn’t affect the bag structurally. It’s really more of an aesthetic element to hide seams/ edges of the raw leather. But for such a big brand, and a bag commanding so much money, you would think that such a detail SO BASIC as this would have been done correctly, and well.

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You can see that edges that have had the edge finish applied has that rubbery-looking, shiny coat. The raw leather edge is rougher and shows the seam where the two (or more) layers of leather were layered.

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Why would this happen, if indeed (we assume) this is on purpose? It comes down to the decision-making process in the construction of the bag.

Normally, you would apply the edge finish on that portion first and let it dry completely before attaching it to the rectangular ring hardware, and then stitch the parts together and finish the rest of the edges. In this case, they skipped a step and attached the strap right away. Then they stitched it and applied the edge finish, leaving the portion curled around the hardware raw and very obviously different from the portions that were finished correctly.

You might ask: why could they not apply edge finish AFTER folding it around the hardware? Because the edge finish goes on wet, and requires several coats with lengthy drying times in between–the hardware would likely have gotten stained. By skipping this step, it saved them a lot of time and labor, essentially. Talk about corporate greed?

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From afar, not very obvious, and perhaps the average customer would not care about such a detail that has no structural effect to the bag, but I cannot forgive it. You’re not asking 25$ for an H&M bag here (which, I guarantee you, might even have more properly finished edges than this), you’re asking 2500$. Oversights like this should not be acceptable.

And it’s not just in that area where they tried to save time and cost. Let’s take a look at these tiny straps reinforcing the top edges of the bag:

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The edge finish here is present, but not enough of it, and not consistently

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Such terrible details.

Now the bag base:

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Looks solid enough, also machine sewn

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Upper edge

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This is a good example of being able to spot machine sewing. Compare the clean look of the stitches in front

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To the “flat” looking stitches on the reverse side

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I can’t explain it exactly, but if you’ve used a sewing machine for clothes or leather or pleather, the back side of the stitches has this look. That’s because when you use a sewing machine, you’ve got thread coming from the spool of thread above, and thread coming from the bobbin underneath, but the threads never criss-cross. The top thread just “hooks” the bottom thread. That’s why when a seam comes undone, you can pull it apart. When you find a loose thread on a piece of clothing, you pull on it and it keeps coming loose, right? But if you compare it to something sewn by hand, the threads fully criss cross, so it’s like two separate lines of stitches. If one breaks, the seam still can’t be ripped (at least, not easily) because you’ve got a whole other line of stitches holding it together. Because of the criss-cross, the back side of the stitches looks very much like the front. It doesn’t have that flat look. I’ll try to find more examples to show, but if you keep examining the stitches you’ll start to see. Haha

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Finally, the shoulder straps. Another example of how different the front stitches look from the back. Here’s the front:

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the stitches have the slant, and there’s more depth because this is where the needle pushed down to pierce the leather

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And see how flat it looks on the back? It doesn’t have the slant either, and the stitching holes looks like it ripped the leather a bit (where the needle came out)

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You can also see this line

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Not an unusual way to construct bag handles, but for me it may not be as sturdy as leather straps that weren’t tapered

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Side by side, the back of the strap vs the front:

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Summary of scams in this bag:

1) trying to make it seem like suede lining but it’s actually MICROFIBER (you can clean your glasses or phone screen with it, I guess???)

2) trying to take shortcuts by skipping the edge finish on some areas–terrible attention to detail!

There you go. Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the LV onthego tote!

(note: this is the MM size. The smaller one has a crossbody too, and I think the big one also has the 2 straps)

Additional photos I unearthed from my phone from when we were at the store:

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LV’s version of the twilly, and the matching wallet

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Some of these alternate colorways.. I just find very unattractive and faux-leaning

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