The Microscopic Handbag, designed by MSCHF, was auctioned earlier this month. Photo / Instagram @MSCHF
The Microscopic Handbag, designed by MSCHF, was auctioned earlier this month. Photo / Instagram @MSCHF
A handbag smaller than a grain of salt bearing the Louis Vuitton logo has sold for more than £50,000 (NZ$103,000) at an online auction.
The “Microscopic Handbag”, made by a New York art collective based in Brooklyn, measures 657 by 222 by 700 microns, less than 0.07 centimetreswide.
Creators MSCHF claim it is small enough to pass through the eye of a needle and smaller than a grain of salt.
The barely visible fluorescent piece was sold today by online auction house Joopiter, founded by singer Pharrell Williams. The creation came with a microscope through which to view it.
Since its inception in 2016, MSCHF has continued to mock the luxury fashion industry.
Its previous creations include shoes that contain human blood, trainers with holy water in the soles, a cologne that smells like WD-40, and giant red rubber boots.
Made from two-photon polymerisation, a manufacturing technology used to 3D-print micro-scale plastic parts, the microscopic bag is based on a £2500 (NZ$5202) design by Louis Vuitton, but has no connection to the luxury French fashion house.
Williams is creative director of menswear for Louis Vuitton.
The creators said they had not asked the label’s permission to use the logo on the bag.
“There are big handbags, normal handbags and small handbags, but this is the final word in bag miniaturisation,” MSCHF said in a post about the bag.
It also said the luxury industry’s penchant for small bags has seen them “steadily more abstracted” to the point that it is “purely a brand signifier”.
Diplo wearing MSCHF's "Big Red Boots" at a New York Knicks game in February. Photo / Getty Images
“Previous small leather handbags have still required a hand to carry them — they become dysfunctional, inconveniences to their ‘wearer,’” the statement added. “‘Microscopic Handbag’ takes this to its full logical conclusion. A practical object is boiled down into jewellery, all of its putative function evaporated; for luxury objects, usability is the angels’ share.”
MSCHF settled with Nike out of court after the brand sued over the collective’s “Satan shoes” - a series of trainers featuring satanic symbols and drops of real human blood. In 2021 it ripped up Birkin handbags to make sandals for up to £60,000 (NZ$124,847) per pair.
