by Have you ever felt more stylish than coming out for a pint of skimmed milk? No? Well, that’s surprising – because supermarkets and their products are one of the biggest ideas in fashion. This week, Moschino launched its Sedano bag – a celery-shaped clutch that first appeared on catwalks earlier in the year. In response, UK supermarket Aldi removed its 75p celery sticks as a cheaper alternative to the $4,470 (£3,730) leather wallet, posting a photo on Facebook with the caption: “Moschino’s moved, but there’s a whole vegetable aisle us. “
Earlier this year, artist and designer Nikolas Bentel’s £50 croissant bag, inspired by Lidl’s all-butter pastry, sold out. Leather, with a coin purse (and Lidl branded trolley coin in the zipper), the handbag had a roll top like a paper bag – as if it had been freshly scrunched up on the way to checkout. Last year, JW Anderson, whose designs are a favorite on red carpets, sent a model down the catwalk in a dress apparently made from Tesco carrier bags. In fact, T-shirts bearing the Tesco logo, with the word “Disco” or “Techno” instead of the supermarket’s name, seem to have endless appeal.
Supermarket staples and fast-moving consumer goods are also often used as inspiration. Bentel previously designed a bag of penne pasta, apparently inspired by the yellow and blue packaging of the Italian brand De Cecco, usually found on grocery store shelves between the own-brand macaroni and the Napolina fusilli. Anya Hindmarch has decorated a bag of Frosties in the cereal aisle, as well as the McVitie’s Digestives and Rich Tea topping biscuits, selling for around £1,300 more than the food that inspired them. At its latest show, Moschino, a brand that often toys with the iconography of pop culture food brands – perhaps most notably the golden arches of McDonald’s – sent a model down the catwalk carrying a bag that resembled a bottle of laundry detergent . Everyone from Jil Sander to Bottega Veneta has appropriated paper grocery bags.
So what is behind the fashion obsession with Tesco et al? Are these outrageous designs made to go viral? Or are they trying to inject some fun into the “big store” world? “Supermarkets are visually appealing with stocked shelves, colorful packaging and endless offerings to satisfy our reputation,” says Melissa Marra-Alvarez, curator of education and research at the FIT Museum in New York City, and co-editor of Food and Fashion. “There’s a lot of material here – literal, figurative, psychological – for designers to have fun and be creative with.”
“Supermarket fashion allows for a very literal presentation of our ‘taste’ … Food and fashion are very much connected to our personal identity,” she says. Like our wardrobes, our shopping lists can be seen as defining who we are, what we stand for and how we want others to perceive us. A design of this kind could be seen as an attempt to express a kind of salt of the earth, despite the fact that he could afford to wear a large model on a bag with Tony the Tiger on it. Dr Gaby Harris, lecturer in fashion cultures at Manchester City University, says: “We can see this as a playful relationship between the ideas of excess and everyday life.”
There is a more serious side to it all, however. “I think we shouldn’t underestimate the real consequences of this consumer culture,” says Harris, “which privileges wealthy and elite groups to routinize, while taking advantage of a system that people from lower income backgrounds see less able to obtain a basic resource. requirements.”
Trend analyst Sabrina Faramarzi agrees that luxury fashion has “always had an interest in fetishising the value of real life”. She cites the Chanel 2014 show, which was held in a fake supermarket, featuring Chanel-themed flour, oil and eggs. As the Guardian pointed out: “Not everyone is a fan of high fashion parodying the low, embracing the idea that a Chanel customer is more likely to carry a Chanel basket than a slightly off-key Asda one, Little Marie Antoinette. “
Says Faramarzi: “In my opinion, what used to be seen as fresh and fun irony now leaves a bad taste in your mouth, especially in the context of an increasingly turbulent economic and social landscape.”
However, Marra-Alvarez points out that food motifs have appeared on clothing for centuries. While the pictures themselves may have evolved with consumer culture, they have long expressed an aspirational lifestyle – and a detergent carton is perhaps more reusable for most than, say , lobster pendant. “The appeal of food, both aesthetic and symbolic, to highlight harvest, bounty, abundance or luxury is not a new concept – these associations have always existed.” Her personal favorite? “Rachel Antonoff coffee cup sweater” – described on Antonoff’s website as “everyone’s favorite bodega drink”.
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