Shoppers wanting to take home a Louis Vuitton handbag would need to have around $2,300 in their bank account.
To take home a microscopic version of the bag—which has been created without the brand's sign off—it would cost them around 27 times that much.
According to a listing from Joopiter, a digital-first auction house founded by musician and creative Pharrell Williams, a neon Louis Vuitton tote bag which is "smaller than a grain of salt" sold this week for nearly $63,750.
The piece, named Microscopic Handbag, was created by Brooklyn art collective MSCHF (pronounced mischief).
The group raised eyebrows in 2021 after it tore up Hermès Birkin bags—which retail for around $11,000 each—and transformed the pieces into Birkenstock-style sandals, which sold for $76,000. MSCHF also hit headlines for selling sneakers with holy water trapped in the soles, dubbed "Jesus shoes," and "Satan shoes" containing human blood, which were released in collaboration with rapper Lil Nas X.
As well as causing a stir with the public, the Lucifer-inspired footwear was met with a less-than-enthusiastic response from Nike, which sued MSCHF for its unauthorized use of its Air Max 97s in the design. The lawsuit was ultimately settled outside of court.
On Instagram, MSCHF said the Microscopic Handbag—which is small enough to pass through the eye of a needle—had been made to underline the fashion trend of micro-bags, many of which aren't large enough to fit a mobile phone into.
"There are big handbags, normal handbags, and small handbags, but this is the final word in bag miniaturization," the collective wrote. "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."
The bag—which has been dubbed the "ant purse"—measures 657 by 222 by 700 micrometers and is only visible to the human eye via a microscope with a digital screen—which is also shown on the listing.
Micro matters
The piece was made using polymerization printing methods—a type of 3D printing—created out of resin, which has now been put in a gel casing so it won't be misplaced.
This is a factor the team creating the piece needed to consider. According to The Smithsonian magazine, the MSCHF team lost some shards of the material when sending them off for review.
In a statement alongside the listing, MSCHF argued that usability of items like bags is no longer in the hands of mere mortals.
"Previous small leather handbags have still required a hand to carry them—they become dysfunctional, inconveniences to their 'wearer,'" the group said.
"Microscopic Handbag takes this to its full logical conclusion. A practical object is boiled down into jewelry, all of its putative function evaporated; for luxury objects, useability is the angels' share."
As well as potentially losing shards of the handbag, the MSCHF team also had the issue of Louis Vuitton's branding—which they didn't seek permission to use.
Earlier this month, Kevin Wiesner, the chief creative officer of MSCHF told The New York Times: “We are big in the ‘ask forgiveness, not permission’ school."
It's not a mentality which has worked seamlessly in the past. As well as facing legal troubles with its "Satan shoes," which sold out almost instantly but were recalled as part of Nike's settlement, MSCHF is also currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Vans.
The skateboarding apparel company sued MSCHF after it released a line of "Wavy Baby" shoes, distorting Vans's "Old Skool" sneakers. Sales of the shoes were initially blocked in April last year, with a judge finding Vans was likely to prove that MSCHF's shoes would cause confusion with its trademark-protected design.
