Bags crafted by luxury brands have become one of the most sought-after products in recent years, but this obsession with labels now trumps utility. This is why a handbag "smaller than a grain of salt" was sold for $63,750 at auction last year. The Louis Vitton-inspired bag, measuring 657 by 222 by 700 microns or less than 0.03 inches, has been created by a Brooklyn-based art collective, MSCHF, known for its extraordinary controversial designs.
Banking on Brand Value
Described as a “Microscopic Handbag” by MSCHF, the bag is small enough to pass through the eye of a needle and people would need a microscope to catch a glimpse of it. The bag was made using two-photon polymerization, a manufacturing technique that is used to create 3D-print micro-scale plastic parts. The promotional photo shows that the the design was inspired by Louis Vuitton’s OnTheGo tote bag and the bag also carries the signature “LV” monogram.
Kevin Wiesner, the chief creative officer of MSCHF, told The New York Times that the OnTheGo style was chosen as the design could be reproduced at a microscopic level. The fluorescent green color and the slight translucence texture were selected to make the bag more visible when lit from below on a slide under a microscope.
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MSCHF has previously produced several controversial designs including shoes that contain human blood, trainers with holy water, giant red rubber boots, and a cologne that smells like the popular machine lubricant, WD-40. The firm also ran into a controversy when it was slapped with a lawsuit by Nike.
Taking its design philosophy further, the collective decided to take the trend of small handbags to the extreme. "There are big handbags, normal handbags, and small handbags, but this is the final word in bag miniaturization. As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller its object status becomes steadily more abstracted," MSCHF wrote in a post.
Wiesner confirmed that the bag was positioned as a commentary on the impracticality of ever-shrinking luxury handbags. “I think ‘bag’ is a funny object because it derives from something rigorously functional,” he said in the interview. He explained that the maker aimed to extend the trend and strip away all the utility of the bag, "leaving nothing but a brand signifier".
Avoiding Controversy?
The sale of the microscopic bag was hosted by Joopiter, an online auction house founded by musician, record producer, and designer Pharrell Williams. While Williams served as Louis Vuitton’s creative director of menswear, Wiesner previously shared with the Times that the collective did seek his or the French label’s permission to use its logo and design.
During the process of its production, some of the tiny bag samples were sent to be reviewed by the brand but they were so small that some samples were lost by the MSCHF team, the Smithsonian magazine reported. The bids for the item started at $15,000 and the winning bid went up to $63,750. The buyer of the bag won’t have to worry about losing it as it comes in a sealed gel case along with a microscope that has a digital display.
While the item is one of a kind, the artists at MSCHF hoped that the owner wouldn't take it too seriously. “I almost hope somebody eats it,” Wiesner told the Times.
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