By June D. Bell
CostCo Connection
October, 2017
MELISSA OVERDORF’S purse obsession began innocently enough, with a 1940s petit point Asprey of London handbag she inherited from her grandmother in 1999. Before long, the smitten Seattle resident was hunting down vintage beaded, mesh and fabric purses on eBay and at antique fairs.
"A purse is an incredibly personal item that contains, in one spot, the things that are absolutely essential to a woman," says Overdorf. "It’s her freedom, her money, her perfume. You get the whole sense of a woman from looking at her purse."
As her collection grew, she realized she was vying in auctions with likeminded devotees. "I was being outbid by all these other women, and I wanted to make friends with them because they understood me," she says with a laugh. In 2003, she founded the Antique Purse Collectors Society (antiquepursecollectorssociety.com). Today, it has approximately 300 members in the U.S. and other countries.