What's in that bag?

What “luxury” means today is increasingly being brought into question as a new generation of consumers imposes its values on businesses vying for their attention and hard-earned cash. MSCHF’s latest drop is bound to provoke further thought.

The New York art collective recently revealed its latest piece of “art” — a “Frankenstein” handbag created by several factories around the world through a series of prompts. These included references from renowned and loved designer brands.

Describing the process, MSCHF said they “first asked a factory in Peru to knock off a Birkin bag. Next, we told a factory in Portugal to mash this up with a Celine bag.” They then got a factory in India to combine it with a Dior bag before finally asking a Chinese factory to merge it with a Balenciaga bag.

The result? MSCHF’s “Global Supply Chain Telephone Handbag”. The leather bag with a twill interior and detachable shoulder strap features a zippered front pocket, a back pocket and card pocket. As intended, it looks like a cross between any number of bags by designer labels.

“Anyone seriously engaged with manufacturing understands the factory is not a computer taking in perfect instructions and outputting perfect execution,” MSCHF explains. “The factory performs tremendous amounts of invisible creative labour. It is found in processes, mechanisms, or techniques that succeed when they cannot be spotted by the end consumer. It is creativity only evident, for example, in the way you cannot see a parting line. It happens in places where the designer doesn’t even know to provide instructions.”

MSCHF first came into mainstream consciousness two years ago when they released the “Satan Shoes” — the custom Nike Air Max 97 in collaboration with rapper Lil Nas. 666 pairs were released and MSCHF later settled out of court after Nike sued for trademark infringement. That didn’t stop MSCHF, however; soon came the popular Big Red Boots that appeared on social media, worn by celebrities and influencers.

Most recently, MSCHF released a microscopic Louis Vuitton bag, no bigger than a breadcrumb. Modelled after Louis Vuitton’s monogram OntheGo bag, the itsy-bitsy handbag is a riff on the mini-handbag trend. “As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller, its object status becomes steadily more abstracted until it is purely a brand signifier,” MSCHF said in a statement at the time. “They become dysfunctional, inconveniences to their wearer.”

The MSCHF “artworks” sell at mind-blowing prices. The global supply chain bag went on sale this week at $650, while the microscopic bag fetched $63,750 and the Big Red Boots $350. Clearly, these aren’t affordable pieces of commentary on luxury.

Price aside, luxury doesn’t only derive its worth from exclusivity and craftsmanship. Quality is important, but I would argue that this is often left to perception as a by-product of legacy. We barely question quality if it comes with a revered brand name.

MSCHF’s Global Supply Chain Telephone Handbag forces us to take a closer look at what we consider to be luxury and where we place our value. What is the difference between a bag “Made in Italy” and one “Made in Peru”? Is the future luxury consumer going to be comfortable shelling out hundreds of dollars to purchase a “luxury” item that involved exploitive labour practices in some developing country?

For millennials and Gen Z — who will in the next few years become the largest consumers of luxury — considerations of what constitutes luxury seem to go hand-in-hand with one’s values. Hence the increasing demands for sustainability, traceability and inclusivity — issues the MSCHF bag highlights. It is the kind of statement piece I can see younger consumers buying into precisely because it speaks to those values without eschewing the other aspects of luxury: exclusivity and craftsmanship.

MSCHF’s Global Supply Chain Telephone Bag went on sale February 21, 2024.