Would you rather own a Louis Vuitton bag or a bag with a picture of a Louis Vuitton bag on it?
The Onion may have been ahead of its time when it published this headline back in 2017: “Louis Vuitton Releases New Line Of Designer Leather Freezer Bags.”
In a strange bit of life imitating comedy, Louis Vuitton is now selling a series of handbags designed to resemble plastic freezer bags. They will cost you nearly $4,000.
The bags themselves are made of leather, not plastic, but the trompe l’oeil effect could have fooled us. Coated in silver, one of the bags features a hyper-realistic print of Louis Vuitton’s monogrammed Handle Soft Trunk bag, which appears next to an apple. Another shows the Sac Plat with a crumbly croissant set casually atop what is surely very expensive leather. The optical illusions bring to mind a Russian nesting doll. Or a very light lunch.
Perhaps Louis Vuitton is simply trying to catch the wave of the bag-on-bag trend (see this one from Maison Margiela). Or maybe the brand wanted to contribute its own creation to expensive designer accessories that mimic a cheap way to store groceries, like this nearly $2,000 brown paper bag from Bottega Veneta that isn’t actually made of paper, or Balenciaga’s $2,000 Ikea bag dupe.
Either way, the bag seems to play into fashion trends that emphasize the intersection between informality and style. Maybe #grocerystorecore will be the next hashtag to start popping up in your TikTok feed.
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