Key Points
- The neon-green bag “smaller than a grain of salt” was sold for a reported $96,270.
- The art collective behind the design is known for other fashion stunts, such as shoes containing human blood.
- The bag was sold during Paris Fashion Week through an auction house owned by the legendary artist Pharrell Williams.
A microscopic 'Louis Vuitton' handbag has now sold for a reported $96,270.
The neon-green bag is “smaller than a grain of salt”, requiring the new owner to use a microscope to view its faux-Louis Vuitton branding design.
The sellers were kind enough to include a microscope with a digital display with the purchase.
That currently unknown owner was willing to shell out more than the cost of for a bag with total dimensions of just 657 by 222 by 700 microns.
The teeny tiny bag needs to be viewed under a microscope for the observer to perceive its design. Credit: MSCHF/Instagram
Who on earth thought of this?
The Brooklyn-based art collective behind the design, MSCHF, is known for its controversial statement pieces.
Their previous work includes 'satan shoes' made for rapper Lil Nas X that contained real human blood, a cologne that smells like WD-40, and their infamous giant red rubber boots.
The creators used 3D printing and a material known as photopolymer resin to make the tiny product.
In the auction post, MSCHF said they wanted "the final word in bag miniaturization".
"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…Microscopic Handbag takes this to its full logical conclusion. A practical object is boiled down into jewellery, all of its putative function evaporated." the brand wrote.
While the teeny tote was being formulated, some samples sent for review were apparently so small that the MSCHF team lost them, the Smithsonian magazine reports.
The auction, called the 'Just Phriends' sale – took place during Paris Fashion Week Men as part of the JOOPITER auction house owned by legendary singer, producer and oversized-hat-wearer Pharrell Williams.
Interestingly enough, while the bag has no connection with the Louis Vuitton brand, Pharrell Williams is currently serving as the brand's creative director of menswear.
He was reportedly not contacted by MSCHF when creating the bag in the brand's likeness, however, according to The New York Times.
Other big sales at the auction included a Louis Vuitton x Virgil Abloh Dream House Window Mannequin ($98,100), the Pharrell Williams x Richard Mille RM 65-01 ($726,500), and a Lewis Hamilton x Takashi Murakami F1 Grand Prix Helmet ($584,900).
