A fashion icon walks into a bar, dressed head to toe in designer items, bedazzled jewellery and… a crisp packet handbag?
The accessories designed to carry our bits and bobs have been getting weirder each season, and the odd trend of turning everyday items like ice cubes and shopping bags into couture shows no signs of stopping.
Back in the summer of 2022, Vogue declared that the era of the ‘wacky handbag’ was coming to an end, but if the 2024 Met Gala was anything to go by – that doesn’t seem to be the case. At all.
Now, iconic fashion house Kate Spade has also released a range of bags inspired by… well, condiments. The purses emulate Heinz ketchup bottles and sachets. Saucy.
Of course, quirky bags are not a novel idea, with designers such as Judith Leiber creating couture pieces modeled off of martini glasses and French fries.
The Italian luxury fashion house Moschino has also made novelty purses their ‘thing’, with the pill bottle-inspired bag from Milan Fashion Week in September 2016 causing uproar for promoting drugs (Moschino defended the design as being a play on the word ‘capsule’).
Balenciaga has also transformed the blue shopping bags you find in Ikea into accessories, but the designer version was priced at £1,600. They’ve also modelled items on regular laundry bags and even something that looks eerily similar to an old Tesco plastic bag.
On the runway things have become even wackier, with JW Anderson’s £650 pigeon clutch, which made its debut during the Men’s Autumn/Winter 2022 and Women’s Pre-Fall 2022 presentation reinventing how we perceive annoying city vermin.
Clearly handbags don’t just have to be a thing that holds your keys, purse and random coins – they can be fun statements themselves.
Let’s take a look at some of the craziest handbags of the year so far…
Michael Shannon’s Balenciaga crisp packet
What do you do when you love snacks but you also need somewhere to stash your phone while on a red carpet? You bring a crisp packet, of course.
Michael Shannon with your potato chip balenciaga handbag your swag too different etc pic.twitter.com/ZaxBknHot5
— ð¥ððð¾ð¶ ððð¶ðð½ð¶ (@hereinthecanvas) May 8, 2024
Actor Michael Shannon turned heads at the 2024 Met Gala with his bright yellow Balenciaga Cheese and Onion crisp packet accessory.
The item was made of glossy calfskin and cost $1,850 (£1,400) and people actually quite enjoyed it. X user @hereinthecanvas wrote: ‘Michael Shannon with your potato chip Balenciaga handbag your swag too different.’
Moschino’s Baguette
This outlandish design may make tummies growl because of its close resemblance to a baguette.
Although it’s missing ham and cheese, the luxury label’s 2020 release went on sale for £758. It was made from leather and was embellished with the Moschino logo.
In February 2024, the baguette bag (actually, let’s call it what it is, a bag-guette) made a surprise appearance at Moschino’s Autumn/Winter 2024-2025 show at Milan Fashion Week.
Moschino obviously loves French cuisine and who can blame them.
Camila Cabello’s Jane Wade Ice Cube
The terms ‘icy’ or ‘iced out’ are often used to describe a piece of clothing or accessory that is noticeably cool and expensive-looking.
Pop singer Camila Cabello took this to a level of polar proportions by pairing her 2024 Met Gala outfit with a literal block of ice. Brrr.
But what do you put inside an ice handbag? If you’re the I Luv It singer, a single rose frozen inside.
The accessory then became a hot commodity (or in this case, cold). The bag was designed by Jane Wade and originally made its debut at New York Fashion Week 2024.
Camila wore the bag to honour the event theme, The Garden of Time, and it quickly sent the internet into meltdown mode.
Fan @supertwisted on X commented: ‘Camila Cabello holding a golden rose encapsulated in REAL ice is the top tear accessory at the #MetGala.’
The Coperni CD player
Most of us use streaming services to listen to music, but did you know that the only way to listen to your top songs on-the-go was by bringing a physical CD or cassette player with you?
Millennials can revel in nostalgia with the Coperni IT Swipe Bag for Spring/Summer 2024, which is basically a portable CD player, similar to those you used to find in an Argos catalogue.
Sadly, the piece was just for the runway and it could only hold physical CDs, so you’d have to find somewhere else to store your lipsticks and old receipts.
The Louis Vuitton sandwich bag and coffee cup
A packed lunch is usually a surefire way to save some cash when working on-site, but this money-saving hack definitely doesn’t come into play with the viral Louis Vuitton sandwich bag.
The accessory, designed by Pharrell Williams, went on sale in January costing £2,460. Designers seem to be obsessed with food as of late, because this yellow leather bag, for the Men Spring/Summer 2024 collection is meant to look like the throwaway paper bags used for sandwiches.
It wasn’t the first time that the French fashion house took inspiration from regular bags, after it launched a checkered plastic laundry bag in its Spring/Summer 2007 collection.
It takes inspiration from disposable coffee cups and you even get the name ‘Louis’ scrawled on it, like you would with your own name at Starbucks.
To be fair, it would pair nicely and be totally on theme with the More recently, it unleashed a Coffee Cup bag which you can still buy for £620.
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