If you want the look of this newest Gucci bag without the price tag, Keri Lumm has a solution for you.
It’s been a few years since high-fashion collaborations began inundating the market, and houses are still eager to couple up with each other to boost everything from product sales to consumer visibility and engagement. Whereas Virgil Abloh has become the industry’s most prolific collaborator (he churned out nine (!) different collaborations in 2017 alone), brands like Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Alexander Wang have all recently linked up with additional labels and influencers (like Palace, Zendaya and Uniqlo, respectively), drawing big buzz.
Gucci, too, has teamed up with a constant stream of artists since Alessandro Michele became creative director in January 2015. And now, the Italian house has joined forces with a new kind of partner: Rei Kawakubo‘s Comme des Garçons.
Despite their wildly different aesthetics, the two brands have combined the best of their signature styles and collaborated on a bag: the Gucci x Comme des Garçons shopper. The tote is based on the foundation of a Comme des Garçons classic, made from craft brown paper and coated in a plastic “shell.” Gucci’s iconic green-red-green “Web” stripe runs vertically down the middle, providing a juxtaposition to Comme des Garçons’s more technical fabrication. According to a press release, the shopper was made in Japan.
Though pricing information for the shopper has not yet been released (Fashionista has reached out to Gucci for more information), the bag first launched in Japan last Friday, Nov. 23 through an exclusive release at Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market Ginza. It becomes available internationally next week, on Thursday, Dec. 6 — just in time for the holidays.
While still more than a week away from its global debut, this shopper is already sure to become a worldwide hit. Both Gucci and Comme des Garçons are universally beloved for their own recognizable, distinctive perspectives on design, and an accessory like a tote bag is the perfect entry point for shoppers looking to own a coveted piece of both brands. We’re curious to see if its success will lead to additional Michele-Kawakubo link-ups in the future. (Fingers crossed.)
Fashionista, posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com, Nov. 29, 2018
Video by Buzz60/Keri Lumm
