Just to understand the full cultural context, I assumed he was interested in the price because he was buying the bag.

In the world of hoary gender stereotypes, it's expected for men to buy women's fashion objects (in fact, there was a study about how women's bags are expensive loyalty signals to other women), and it is men who are expected to buy their OWN toys and, in fact, HIDE their purchases from women (good lord, all those AVSIM forums posts about their wives being gone for a week and what should they order).

Edit: Hoary means old.