Cameron Salehi can’t remember how many designer bags she owns, but she knows it’s more than 30.

“Some girls love shoes. Some girls love jewelry,” Salehi, an SMU junior, explains. “I don’t know. Handbags are the thing I love to get.”

With the average price of designer handbags ranging between $1,200 and $1,500, a collection like Salehi’s costs nearly $40,000. Despite the expensive price tag, an increasing number of young women are paying for this piece of haute fashion.

According to Mintel International Group, a consumer and market research firm, the accessory business is the fastest growing sector of the luxury fashion market. The handbag market in particular is outperforming other aspects of the market with ease. Mintel predicts that women’s accessories will continue to grow at its current rate of about 64 percent over the next five years, and the handbag sector will be the most profitable.

Pamela Rabin, a sales associate at the Kate Spade store in NorthPark Center, is not surprised by the trend.

“Girls are more educated now in fashion. It means more to carry a designer handbag now, so girls are ready to spend more,” Rabin said.

Cory Williams, former manager of Bottega Veneta and current sales associate at Barney’s New York in NorthPark Center, describes handbags as “forgiving” accessories. He says with a handbag, a woman does not have to worry about her weight changing. She doesn’t have to worry if her bag matches perfectly, and she can rely on it dressing up any outfit.

According to Williams, shopping for luxury retail is a mental release and getting attention for one’s fashion sense is therapeutic.

“It means the world to a woman when she gets a compliment on her bag, and with a designer handbag, a woman is guaranteed to get some compliments,” Williams said. “A handbag will never let you down.”

Jeanette Khan, an SMU senior, agrees that a handbag’s “one-size-fits-all” appeal allows girls to buy the labels without having to buy the clothes. Khan, who owns nine designer bags, does not consider herself a materialistic person, but she admits she has a weakness for handbags.

“My mom also collects designer bags, so I grew up understanding their value,” Khan said. “When I buy a bag, I’m not caring about the cost, but rather I’m thinking I can have this bag forever.”

However, like most young women who are buying handbags, Khan is not the one paying the bill. Her dad is. But Najam Khan, a 52-year-old business consultant, doesn’t mind spending over a thousand dollars on a bag for his daughter.

“If the handbag is valued by my daughter and she gets some use and joy out of it, then it holds value in my eyes. I trust her judgment,” Mr. Khan wrote in an e-mail interview. “Expensive handbags are a good investment if used with care.”

Handbags regained mainstream appeal in the late ’90s when a line of designer brands – including Marc Jacobs, Chloe, Balenciaga and Luella – earned attention from a younger demographic.

In addition to launching his own line, Marc Jacobs revamped the Louis Vuitton image as the company’s creative director. He developed the company’s first ready-to-wear line, and his collaborations with cutting-edge designers were admired on the catwalk and copied in the counterfeit market.

Celebrity endorsement is also influencing the increasing success of designer handbags. Younger faces have been hired to represent labels like Dooney & Bourke and Louis Vuitton, and some younger celebrities have been photographed showing their support by carrying their favorite designer bags.

In some cases the celebrity influence is so profound the bag is named after them. The Hermes Kelly bag is named after Princess Grace Kelly and the Birkin bag bears the name of actress Jane Birkin. Marc Jacobs named one of his designs after model Jessica Stam. The Stam bag, priced at $1,275, is one of the most sought-after bags at the Neiman Marcus in NorthPark Center, according to sales associate Christine Caldwell.

“The trend for the younger customers is to buy what the celebrities are wearing, which is probably why they are drawn to the Stam bag,” Caldwell said. “Girls come in and say ‘I saw so-and-so in a movie wearing this bag. Do you have it? Or I saw so-and-so carrying that bag. Do you have it?”

As the demand for designer handbags increases, so does the demand for designer knock-offs. The black market has historically made its home on the streets of big cities like New York and Los Angeles, but now it is infiltrating the Internet. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the knock-off market cost authorized luxury dealers roughly $200 billion in lost revenue last year.

Designer labels are fighting back with lawsuits, especially against auction sites like eBay Inc. LVMH Moet Hennessy, the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate, filed a lawsuit in Paris claiming eBay failed to take an aggressive stance against the sale of counterfeit goods on its site.

Designer labels are also using the media in their campaign against counterfeiting. Advertisements in high fashion magazines including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar explain to Americans (currently the second-largest consumer of counterfeit goods in the world) purchasing a fake handbag supports an illegal industry that involves sweatshop factories and theft of intellectual property.

In addition to lost revenue, designers are concerned mass reproductions of their handbags will hurt the desirability and cachet of their labels. True handbag aficionados, however, say a counterfeit bag’s lack of quality leaves consumers longing for the real thing.

“The quality of a bag speaks for itself,” Williams said. “A real designer bag offers a timeless elegance that is found in its beautiful finish.”

Several Web sites, including bagborroworsteal.com and frombagstoriches.com, give women the opportunity to carry a designer bag without paying thousands. Instead of buying the bag, they borrow it.

Women can choose from a large selection of designer bags that they rent for a specified period of time at a fraction of the cost. Customers of the sites maintain request lists that they update and change as new bags become available. Monthly rental prices depend on the value of the bag and range from $20 to $200 foreach bag.

With designers continually launching new styles of bags and the new “It” bag repeatedly being plastered across spreads in fashion magazines, experts expect the desire for (and prices of) designer handbags will continue to rise.

“There will be no waning of the desire for a designer handbag,” Williams said. “The passion girls have will only get worse because they’re beginning to discover a good bag is always forever.”