I’m sure by now you may have seen or heard about Jil Sander’s $290 brown paper bag. Yes, I said $290:
It’s just a coated brown paper bag with holes in it. The bag has sold out. It’s a brown paper bag that’s the equivalent of a car payment. If I had a million dollars I wouldn’t buy this bag, I would spend the money to try to understand why this exists. Yes, fashion is art, and fashion is experimental, and fashion is the catalyst for so many great things, but this just seems unnecessary.
Glamorizing the simple is not new. Femke de Vries created a leather plastic bag, that appeared to be just a plastic bag:
Cast of Vices did the same with their Corner Store leather bag:
I don’t know if a suede recreation of a brown paper bag would’ve made me less angry, but $290 for a brown paper bag just makes me want to scream.
Am I being irrational? Am I just missing the point of this bag?
Yea… I cannot imagine spending that much on a glorified paper bag!!! It is gorgeous, I’d probably spend like $30 on it. But everything I could buy for $290… nope!
At her fall/winter 2012 runway show, Sander sent out models clutching her Vasari purse — essentially a brown paper bag that looks exactly like a brown paper bag, except it retails for $290.