Fashion designer Jil Sander is a genius. Not because I have any particular affection for her fashion, but because she has managed to use her brand to separate fools from their money in a most amusing manner. This time, she has outdone herself, with the introduction of a designer paper bag.
So, what separates this paper bag from the common lunch bag people are familiar with? Well, this one is made of 100 per cent coated paper, and has stitched seams. So it's made of the same materials as a regular paper bag, just put together in a slightly more labor intensive manner. The designer bag also has "Jil Sander" stamped on it, which is probably the most important designer touch of all. She calls it the "Vasari bag" and is selling it for a large sum of money.
Now, given that normal paper lunch bags come in bundles of twenty or thirty for a couple of dollars a pack, it's not difficult to make a more expensive version. Sander's version, however, takes the paper bag to a new level, as the price is $290. For that amount of money you could buy thousands of paper bags, possibly using them to build some kind of throne in order to declare yourself the emperor of paper. Or just one, with a designer label attached to it, which seems like a bad use of money.
This isn't a first for Sander, who released an acetate shopping bag last year which was modeled after a bag you get for free from most stores. The designer is laughing all the way to the bank, as her paper bag is selling out in stores. People are going in, putting down enough money to buy all manner of exciting things, in order to buy a luxury version of what some kids carry their lunch to school in. As I said, the woman is a genius, possibly an evil genius.
She has recognized that a designer label can induce a certain type of person to buy almost anything, and has also seen that the novelty of an over-priced item can bring people out who want to show off in a slightly silly manner. She's taken it to levels never seen before, since she's not actually improving on the cheap version in any appreciable way. The bag is not covered in expensive jewels, it's not made of fine materials, it's not especially labor intensive and there is no competitive advantage over a multitude of less expensive bags. It is just an object made expensive by attaching her name to it, and people are buying it.
In the process, she has made a mockery of the entire concept of fashion and designer labels, revealing that people are driven not by what looks best or what makes sense, but by whose name is on the tag. She is making fun of her own customers, the very people who finance her label and have allowed it to be able to charge $290 for a paper bag. She is making fun of the industry which employs her, and is making a strange artistic statement that has succeeded with the very people she is openly mocking.
I would never buy it, and don't think anyone else should buy it either, but I do appreciate it. Whatever the intent, it has cut to the core of everything wrong with fashion, style and the people who have more money than sense. It is a hilarious expression of what happens when people have more money than sense. Not bad for something that looks like a prominent designer labeling her lunch.
