Jess Battison
An absolutely tiny handbag sold for over an enormous $63,000 yesterday (28 June).
It’s literally so small even Lizzo probably wouldn’t use it in her collection of little accessories.
Based on a popular Louis Vuitton design, the super mini handbag measures just 657 by 222 by 700 microns – that’s less than 0.03 inches wide.
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The work of Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, the neon yellow-green-ish bag is barely visible to the human eye – probably better that it was sold at an online auction with zooming in possible.
MSCHF are the same group who made those ‘Big Red Boots’ earlier this year if you can remember those, so they’re no strangers to causing a bit of a stir in the fashion world.
They claim the Microscopic Handbag is ‘smaller than a grain of sea salt and narrow enough to pass through the eye of a needle’.
Fairly useless as an actual handbag, they add you’ll ‘need a microscope’ in order to actually see it.
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This teeny-tiny bag was created using a technology specifically for 3D-printing micro-scale plastic parts.
The Microscopic Handbag was sold at an online auction hosted by Joopiter which was founded by the one and only music and fashion man himself, Pharrell Williams.
Plastered across the front, the tiny bag has the classic ‘LV’ monogram of Louis Vuitton – like many of the designer’s thousand dollar bags.
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And interestingly, Williams is currently the creative director of menswear at the French design house, but Louis Vuitton never approved this creation.
The chief creative officer of MSCHF, Kevin Wiesner, told the New York Times that the art collective didn’t go for permission from either the musician or Louis Vuitton to use the logo or design.
He said: “Pharrell loves big hats, so we made him an incredibly small bag.”
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The bag is created to be the ‘final word in bag miniaturization’ as we see a trend in people using handbags that aren’t even big enough to hold a mobile phone – is there even any point?
In creation of the Microscopic Handbag, the collective say: “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.”
At the auction, the bag was sold complete with a microscope with a digital display so the owner can at least actually have a look at it properly.
Commenting on the now worth over $63,000 extra-tiny purse on Instagram, users joked: “Finally a bag that fits all this cash.”
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Another quipped: “Spirit Airlines still be like you need to check this bag”.
And one put: “Y’all so extra it’s wild.”