Advertisement

Chanel’s giant hula hoop bag hits the mainstream

Chanel’s giant hula hoop bag debuted last October during Paris’ Spring 2013 Fashion Week.

In a photo from the runway show, a model sports the bag while sashaying down the runway, and it’s a bit of a strange sight. You almost expect that once she gets to the end of the catwalk she’s going to demonstrate how model-sized people can fold themselves up into the bag and use hula-hoop propulsion to roll around the city. The world’s most stylish and expensive hamster ball. At last, an end to car-generated traffic gridlock.

The bag is essentially a mutant-sized version of Chanel’s iconic 2.55 bag that has been welded atop two enormous hoops. Hoops of the highest quality, no doubt, as this is Chanel and it has a reputation to maintain.

Prices for the item begin at approximately $2,360, and it’s assumed you also have access to a private jet because good luck getting that thing on a commercial flight. Or in a taxi. Or in an elevator (without being a complete jackass.)

At the time of its grand debut, many speculated that the bag was none other than a demonstration of Karl Lagerfeld’s marketing genius, a publicity ploy to draw more attention to the storied French label.

It didn’t help when he said stuff like this to the press: “[The bag is] for the beach! You need space for the beach towel. Then you can put it into the sand and hang things on it,” Lagerfeld told the Telegraph at the time, clearly targeting women of the sort of demographic that thinks nothing of dumping a Chanel bag in the sand, perhaps after rolling around St. Barts first.

But then, as the Daily Mail notes, some of the same fashion editors and bloggers who originally mocked the bag were seen sporting it around fashion week events, naturally causing everyone to question their own life choices upon learning that a fashion blogger can afford a $2,360 gimmick bag.

As a final indicator that Lagerfeld isn’t even playing, the hula hoop bag recently started rolling its way into high-end retail stores. Kris Jenner pretended not to love every second of the attention she got last week while posing with the bag at Selfridge’s department store in London and, sure enough, the bag is now all over the internet.

Karl and Kris both do it again, respectively.

Though if you’re in the market for something both ridiculous and expensive and ridiculous for its expensiveness, Chanel’s $8,500 plastic Lego bag is a little more discreet. And probably stays a little cleaner after a day spent frolicking in the sand.