Between 2018 and 2019 there was a proliferation of oversized jacket and big bag memes, with Instagram accounts altering puffer jackets, sneakers and bags donned by models to gargantuan proportions, taking them to an entirely new and comical level.
At the time Opening Ceremony also launched the "Super Large Tote", a giant yellow PVC tote bag that obliged fashionistas carrying them to negotiate doors and entrances (posts on social media of people at platform barriers in underground stations were comical). At the moment, though, rather than super-large bags, there seems to be a fad for extremely expensive bags. Sotheby's has several on offer, from Virgil Abloh's Louis Vuitton monogram Airplane Bag (A/W 21), that you can buy for $60.000 USD, to an entire auction of Louis Vuitton Artycapucines.
The one-off auction features 22 artist-designed Artycapucines bags, each sold in a custom Monogram canvas Boîte Chapeau. Both bag and hat box are signed by the respective artist who created the piece.
The list of artists comprises Amélie Bertrand, Daniel Buren, Sam Falls, Urs Fischer, Donna Huanca, Huang Yuxing, Peter Marino, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Paola Pivi, Ugo Rondinone, Jonas Wood, and Zhao Zhao, among the others. Louis Vuitton will donate the net proceeds of the sale to a diverse range of charities and NGOs, chosen by the respective artists.
Bidding for each bag starts at €16,000 and bags will be exhibited to the public at a special Louis Vuitton presentation at Sotheby's Paris from tomorrow to 5th July, providing an arty distraction (or a shopping occasion...) for the guests of the Haute Couture shows.
But extremely expensive handbags are not just on sale at dedicate auctions: on Louis Vuitton’s menswear runway models carried several large bags, but the current creative director of menswear Pharrell Williams, often appeared at the recent menswear shows in Paris carrying a $1 Million Louis Vuitton Speedy.
Dubbed the "Millionaire" the bag, part of his S/S 24 Louis Vuitton collection, is crafted from yellow crocodile skin and emblazoned with the brand’s signature monogram pattern.
But, to justify its name and price, it also features a chunky gold chain and diamond-covered details, and a diamond padlock. At the shows, Williams accessorized his looks with the bag and with a new version of his trademark custom-made Tiffany & Co. sunglasses, reinvented and slightly changed to include 20 carats of diamonds.
But there is another trend as well when it comes to bags - miniature ones: Jacquemus leads the way in terms of mini-bags that can contain just a lipstick or a ring (but, if you're a Barbie doll, you can stil use them to go to the gym…). In Jacquemus' A/W 23 collection bags resembled keychains rather than traditional handbags.
MSCHF recently took to the extremes the concept of miniature bag: after the outlandishly cartoonish, comically bold and dangerously abstract Astroboy boots that broke the Internet (and that were reinvented in their yellow hybrid version combining MSCHF's Astroboy boot and a pair of Crocs' clogs View this photo), the New York-based conceptual art collective took things further with a micro bag.
Measuring just 657 by 222 by 700 microns (0.657 mm by 0.222 mm by 0.700 mm) and therefore being barely visible to the human eye, the fluorescent green bag based on a popular Louis Vuitton design (the "OnTheGo" tote) sold this week at an online auction hosted by Joopiter (an online auction house founded by Pharrell Williams) for over $63,000.
According to MSCHF the bag is narrow enough to pass through the eye of a needle and is smaller than a grain of sea salt.
The object was made using two-photon polymerization, a manufacturing technology used to 3D-print micro-scale plastic parts and it was sold alongside a microscope equipped with a digital display through which the bag can be viewed.
MSCHF is known for a wide range of interventions engaging fashion, art and technology (you may remember their controversial "Satan Shoes" that attracted Nike's ire or their "Cease & Desist Grand Prix").
A statement published on the collective's Instagram page stated: "As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller its object status becomes steadily more abstracted until it is purely a brand signifier".
"Previous small leather handbags have still required a hand to carry them - they become dysfunctional, inconveniences to their 'wearer,'" a statement accompanying the listing added. "'Microscopic Handbag' takes this to its full logical conclusion. A practical object is boiled down into jewelry, all of its putative function evaporated; for luxury objects, usability is the angels' share."
MSCHF's provocative concept prioritizes aesthetics over usability, drawing a parallel between luxury goods and the concept of the angels' share, where a portion of a substance (such as whisky) evaporates during maturation, leaving behind a more refined and coveted essence. So this project prompts us to reconsider the inherent value we attribute to everyday objects, questioning the extent to which luxury can supersede utility in the realm of fashion and design.
Besides, while for most of us ordinary people and average consumers, it is easy to consider these ultra-expensive items as simply ridiculous and slightly immoral too, we should maybe use them to ponder more about fashion and the creation of a fashionable identity, maybe with the help of Erwin Wurm's series of bag sculptures with elongated legs, such as "Step" (2021).
Part of Wurm's investigation into the anthropomorphic qualities of objects, these designer bags with legs draw attention to their function as vessels for our possessions and as powerful symbols of social and cultural identity. Our choice of clothing and accessories influences indeed not only our own perception of ourselves but also how we are perceived by others. So the next time we see a celebrity carrying one of these extravagantly lavish bags, we should pause and reflect on whether we feel the bag completes a look or an identity and maybe wonder if they are carrying the bag or if, in fact, the bag is carrying them.
Comments