CNN
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Carrying lunch into the workplace from dwelling might be a technique to economize — besides, maybe, when it’s saved in Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton sandwich bag costing over $3,000.
Report producer and designer Williams, who was named men’s creative director of the French luxurious trend home final February, has seemingly drawn inspiration from the traditional paper sandwich bag for one in all his newest designs, reimagining it as a excessive trend accent.
As an alternative of paper, the massive clutch bag — seen tucked beneath the arms of fashions on the runway throughout Williams’ debut assortment on the Pont Neuf in Paris last June — is product of cowhide leather-based “in precisely the identical colour as the home’s famed (paper) buying baggage,” the label stated.
The comparisons don’t finish there. Exactly folded to resemble its extra quotidian counterpart, the accent additionally options the enduring Louis Vuitton lettering in addition to a blue fastening, evoking the grosgrain handles of the home’s baggage, to maintain sandwiches — or extra doubtless, one thing extra treasured — safe.
The piece went on sale January 4 completely on the model’s West Hollywood pop-up retailer, retailing for $3,130. But it surely’s not the primary time that Louis Vuitton has drawn inspiration from on a regular basis (and, historically, less expensive) equipment.
In its Spring-Summer season 2007 assortment, the style home paid homage to the budget-friendly checkered plastic laundry baggage beloved the world over. In 2022, the model additionally launched a cross-body bag resembling a paint can (full with steel deal with), “adorned with playful references to Louis Vuitton’s heritage.”
The paint can bag was designed by Louis Vuitton’s late inventive director Virgil Abloh who, in a 2021 interview with design journal “Icon,” cited the artist Marcel Duchamp — famend for reworking on a regular basis objects into artwork — as one in all his heroes.
Different trend homes have employed this strategy too: In 2014, designer Ashish Gupta revamped the plastic grocery bag right into a sequined assertion piece at a premium value, saying that it paid “homage to on a regular basis life.”
“It’s additionally maybe a revolt towards the disposable nature of quick trend,” Gupta added in a 2017 e mail to CNN. “It’s taking a traditional however throw-away object and turning it into one thing with longevity, that may be appreciated exterior of its common context for its timeless design high quality.”
However such designs can court docket controversy — and mock. In 2017, Balenciaga released a $2,145 bag that appeared identical to Ikea’s iconic 99 cent crinkly, blue “Frakta” bag, and promptly went viral on social media.