Bad taste? Balenciaga coffee cup bag is luxury fashion's latest everyday flaunt
Lauren Sánchez attended a meeting in LA recently carrying a cup of coffee. So far, so unnewsworthy. But what first appeared as her morning caffeine fix was, in fact, a luxury handbag. The Balenciaga design, which is crafted from calfskin, sells for about £4,346.60 more than the average takeaway coffee in the UK.
It mimics the reusable Balenciaga coffee cup – made of porcelain and polypropylene, it sells for £85 – and throwaway vessels.
Sánchez, a former journalist who is the fiancee of Jeff Bezos, is not alone in opting for an accessory that mimics a consumer good but retails for several thousand pounds more. The supermodel Gigi Hadid recently wore a £1,541 Moschino vintage leather handbag made to look like a carton of orange juice. The brand also offers a clutch in the shape of celery. There is a Louis Vuitton bag designed to resemble a paint can (£1,980); as well as crisp packet bags, also from Balenciaga – spicy chilli, salt and vinegar, or cheese and onion (£1,450). Looking to more UK-centric consumer goods, Anya Hindmarch has built a business out of the model. Her Frosties, Perelló olives and Lea & Perrins bags are priced up to £1,300.
According to Iain R Webb, a writer, curator and professor of fashion and design at Kingston school of art in London, this is not new. 'Historically, fashion has always appropriated the common place and utilitarian,' he said, citing 'Marie Antoinette dressing up (or down) like a shepherdess' and the £185 T-shirt from luxury label Vetements riffing on the global logistics company DHL.
But Orsola de Castro, an author and a cofounder of the activist group Fashion Revolution, thinks these consumer product-mimicking designs are best relegated to the past: 'This kind of thing stopped being relevant after Andy Warhol did the Campbell's soup tins. Then it made sense. Then it had a rebellious spirit. Then it was making a point.'
She added: 'If the coffee cup had existed then, the depiction of a coffee cup bag would have been some kind of a statement on plastic or on the unnecessariness of it all. But now it is simply just vulgar.'
The optics of Sánchez, who as an author, pilot and Emmy award-winning journalist reportedly has a net worth of more than $30m (£23m), carrying a mundane object given a mogul makeover are particularly loaded. Dr Gaby Harris, a lecturer in fashion cultures at Manchester Metropolitan University, sees 'coded within these items … the privilege of the wealthy to engage with mass consumption while retaining exclusivity'.
And with coffee prices at a record high, the play on a cup has even more significance than, say, a head of celery might. 'We are observing the inflation of goods while incomes remain stagnated. Thus, everyday staples such as coffee bear greater expense while top earners continue to amass wealth,' said Harris.
Sign up to Fashion Statement
Style, with substance: what's really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved
after newsletter promotion
The coffee cup bag chimes with the confusing current status of status. There is the rise of boom boom, the aesthetic of 80s-style greed and conspicuous consumption, that has been in the ascendant since Donald Trump returned to office. 'Sadly,' according to Webb, 'politically and economically we are witnessing a reflection of the 1980s, so it is not surprising that the showoff aspect of conspicuous consumption should again raise it's ugly head: fashion that is as flash as its price tag, fashion that says, 'I have loadsamoney'.'
But the picture is nuanced. As Sean Monahan, the trend forecaster who coined boom boom, recently said: 'The American elite is in flux. For a long time, it was about people not wanting to flaunt wealth … Now, it's unclear where people are in the status hierarchy.' In this context, a luxury handbag in the shape of an everyday cup of coffee makes a certain topsy turvy sense.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
16 minutes ago
- BBC News
The Tooney & Russo Show Inside Their Homes: Comforts, Cooking & Decor Secrets
Vick gets personal with Ella Toone and Alessia Russo, uncovering their home essentials, fridge must-haves, and signature dishes - including Tooney's go-to meal. Vick also shares why her childhood teddy, 'Snowy,' still means so much to her. The trio reveals their very different approaches to home decor, plus a nostalgic look back at the time Ella and Alessia shared a house in Manchester - where Tooney's obsession with Eton Mess truly began!
Telegraph
18 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Campaign begins to save Turner oil painting
A campaign to bring one of the earliest works by JMW Turner back to Bristol has begun. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol, had remained tucked away in private collections since it was last exhibited in Tasmania, Australia, in 1858. Last year, it was authenticated as a pivotal early work by Turner after the artist's signature was discovered during cleaning. The piece, depicting the Avon Gorge before the Clifton Suspension Bridge was built, was the first oil painting exhibited by Turner at the Royal Academy in 1793, when he was 18. Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is now keen to acquire the work, believed to be the only Turner oil painting of the city. Bring Turner Home It has launched a one-week public fundraising campaign, called Bring Turner Home, to raise £100,000 towards the purchase of the painting, which will go under the hammer at Sotheby's on July 2. If the bid is successful, the piece will become part of Bristol's public collection and go on display this summer. Philip Walker, the head of culture and creative industries at Bristol city council, said: 'This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring a lost masterpiece back to Bristol, a painting that connects our city to one of the greatest artists in history at a defining moment in his life. 'Turner painted this scene when he was just 17, inspired by the dramatic beauty of the Avon Gorge. Now, over two centuries later, we have the chance to bring it home where it can belong to everyone. We want this painting to be part of the city's story, accessible to all and inspiring to future generations. 'We know this is a hugely ambitious fundraising campaign, with a ridiculously small window to raise the money – but Bristol is internationally renowned for its art and culture, and we just can't miss the opportunity to try and go for it. It would be an absolute travesty if Bristol's lost Turner is sold to a private or overseas buyer.' The council is believed to be the only public bidder attempting to secure the piece, which has an estimate of £200,000 to £300,000. Public ownership Bristol Museum and Art Gallery aims to exhibit the piece in as early as August before it travels to Tate Britain for its major Turner and Constable exhibition in November. A council spokesman said: 'No council funding will be used to buy the painting. Instead, the museum is turning to the people of Bristol and supporters of art and heritage across the country to help raise the funds needed to ensure the painting remains in public ownership, rather than entering a private collection.' Turner painted The Rising Squall during a visit to Bristol in 1792. It is based on an on-the-spot drawing found in Turner's Bristol and Malmesbury sketchbook, which he used on a tour of the West Country in 1791, and a watercolour the following year. The piece was bought by the Rev Robert Nixon, an early supporter of Turner, with whom the artist used to stay. Early biographies of Turner record that the artist painted his first oil piece in Rev Nixon's house. Rev Nixon's son, the Rev Dr Francis Russell Nixon, Lord Bishop of Tasmania, inherited the painting before it was acquired by publisher Joseph Hogarth in the early 1860s. It went up for auction at Christie's in London in 1864 before going to a private collection in Northamptonshire, until it was anonymously sold in April last year. During that auction, at Dreweatts in Newbury, the piece was wrongly attributed to 'follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson', an 18th-century artist. Restoration work then took place, revealing the signature 'W Turner' on the lower left of the canvas. Until that point, it had been believed that Turner's earliest exhibited oil painting was a piece known as Fisherman at Sea, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796.
BBC News
26 minutes ago
- BBC News
Highland-wide holiday lets control zone proposed by councillors
A Highland-wide control zone to limit Airbnb-style lets has been suggested as a way of tackling a shortage of homes across the proposing the move said 7,011 short-term let licences had been granted across the Highlands, but only four lets are not banned in control areas, but operators need planning permission as well as a short-term lets councillors said the powers could be used where there was local demand for them. Highland Council officials said control area status for the whole of the Highlands would require research and, if it was introduced, could mean additional costs and workload for its planning department. The idea of Highland-wide status has been suggested by Inverness councillors Michael Gregson and Duncan a paper going to next week's meeting of the full council, they said the region needed more than 24,000 homes over the next 10 added: "The private long-term rental market has shrunk disastrously: estate agents are withdrawing from letting out properties because of the shortage of properties available. "Even taking into account the efforts of Highland Council and the Housing Associations, there is a shortage of affordable housing."The councillors said the local authority should first ask the Scottish government to revisit its original plan to have an overprovision policy within short-term lets said if that was not possible, then to seek approval for Highland control area their response, officials said there would be financial implications for the local authority around both suggestions from the also said there could be potential challenges to Highland-wide of Edinburgh Council had to amend its licensing scheme following a court ruling. The whole of the City of Edinburgh Council area was designated Scotland's first short-term let control area in September 2022.A law requiring operators to have a licence came into force across Scotland in October the following Council's first control zone was approved in December 2023 and covers Badenoch and who supported its introduction said it was needed because workers and local young people had difficulties finding affordable the Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers (ASSC) said at the time that targeting legitimate small businesses to address longstanding housing issues showed "a muddled sense of priorities".
