With the arrival of Fall, the trends we saw all over the runways months ago are just beginning to become available in the ready to wear retail environment. Among these Fall trends was a surge in the amount of fur being used in handbag designs; designers like Diane Von Furstenburg, Jason Wu, and even mass market retailer J. Crew are getting in on the trend.
However, anyone who has a memory for handbag trends from the not-so-distant past will likely remember that we have been down this road before. For the past few seasons the fashion industry has declared fur to be the trend in fall and winter handbags; one can’t help but pause and consider, what really makes this season so different from seasons past? Is a cobalt blue or canary yellow fur handbag going to be any more covetable than the more natural iterations of 2011? Of 2006? Will Fendi’s cartoonesque “Monster” bag with its fuzzy face and eyebrows really live up to its $6,600 price tag?
In early August, Women’s Wear Daily referred to fur handbags as “utterly superfluous” and the height of “let them eat cake extravagance”. Yet in what appears to be an ongoing game of one-upsmanship among designers, the retail shelves are beginning to fill with these furry confections, signalling a return of our sartorial appetites for audacious luxury goods after a period of austere minimalism. The retail climate and luxurious price tag of these bags notwithstanding, there is one question that has yet to be collectively addressed; are these bags tasteful, or simply extravagant?
Invoke the voluptuous hypothesis!