(From the Holt Renfre site: "Anya Hindmarch wanted to do something to make a difference and to inspire people to change their everyday actions. Anya worked with We Are What We Do, the global social change movement to create this limited edition reusable bag. Wear your bag to do your shopping, carry it to the gym, take it to the beach, smug in the knowledge that you are doing something to influence people to make a difference. The bag will be available at or through Holt Renfrew from late June.")
Guess where I was this morning... unfortunately the bag was in "short" supply.
My best friend urgently messaged me yesterday to give her a call because she found out that the Anya Hindmarch I'm Not a Plastic Bag bag was going on sale at Holt's today. So this morning we headed over there at 8:30 am. The line wasn't long, About 13 people ahead of us. But then the line grew longer and relative of the people in front of us joined the line. Closer to their opening time, shop employees came out to announce that they would come around with a list for customers to declare just how many bags they wished to purchase. They also noted that there were only 100 bags at this location and it was first-come first-serve. A fairly reasonable amount and enough to go around for each person in line if the limit was one (I think there were only about 20 people after us). But the limit for purchase was ten! People in line became anxious, as we all knew that the people at the front of the line were going to buy ten each. A family of six had lined up with lawn chairs to be first in line and purchase 60 bags. You can safely bet on where these bags were headed, a street market in Hong Kong, or more likely an online auction with the price jacked up to $200. If you ask me a ten bag limit for a limited edition of only 100 is only facilitating the black market. It is obvious that anyone wishing to purchase ten bags is going to re-sell them. Then the list come to my friend and she got in. She was going to get me one, but somehow they had miscounted their supply and she could only buy the last one.
While I am disappointed to come so close to getting one only not to, I am more disappointed that the message behind the concept is going to be lost. We spotted one woman walking out with ten bags with extras of Holt's shopping bags to use for her resale. This has become a way for fast-cash rather than to encourage environmentalism. They were sold out in record time, only 15 minutes, but there were only 100 and the first six people bought 60 percent of them! Holt's is in the business of luxury goods, didn't they know that a ten-bag limit was only going to support those in the online auction business and was just going to make everyone else unhappy with them? Or were they only in it for the hype (the record time sales)? Surely they knew this would happen. My other question is, do the high end retailers have a love-hate relationship with the black market? I thought they hated them, what folly.
Outrageous! Does Anya Hindmarch know about this?
ReplyDeleteI hate watching people with zero passion for the product use their mercenary conniving to capitalize on the madness. It's sad for those of us who do *really love* the item.
In situations like this, I rue eBay and Yahoo auctions for opening up to this kind of crap behavior.
not sure if it would do anything, but maybe you could email this entry to holts and to anya's company?
ReplyDeleteI bought mine directly through one of her stores over the phone months ago and received my bag a week ago. There was a two bag limit with them, so I'm not sure where this 10 bag "limit" came from. It's sad that there are already 5 pages on ebay, but people will bid.
ReplyDelete??? hilarious
ReplyDeleteThis is such a weird occurance. I don't support the bag, I support the idea of the bag, but it's not made with sustainable material, and it is produced in unethical working conditions.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.catwalkqueen.tv/2007/04/anya_hindmarch.html
It is such a good idea, but unfortunately the inspiration has been lost.
I would bet that most of them will be on eBay tonight. Who came up with a 10 limit when they only have a hundred. Was it a relative of the first in line?
ReplyDeleteYou're right about ebay and re-selling - they were sold through Sainsburys supermarket in the UK and sold out in one day after Keira Knightley was seen with one. In fact they've now become a bit of a sign of trying too hard, because the majority of people carrying them had to hunt them down and pay £200 on ebay as a fashion statement with no care for sustainability. Which is a massive shame.
ReplyDeletean intelligent and thoughtful post. have you considered e-mailing a link to it to someone at Holt Renfrew?
ReplyDeletesorry to hear you didn't get a bag after all that.
What a pity...there are nicer 2nd bags on the market if you ask me but it does seem really unfair that you had to miss out due to the crass greed of the people at the front.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK the limit was 2 and that meant there were a few more to go around.
Wow. I have never actually heard of these bags, but I checked and you are right, they are up on ebay for $100 each.
ReplyDeleteIs money all we care about anymore?
Molly
http://cuppa-cuppa.blogspot.com
That's disappointing. I am hoping to get one when they come out in July at Whole Foods. I plan to use it for shopping (or knitting).
ReplyDeleteI guess that the store simply didn't care--selling the bags to a hundred people or one would result in the same amount of profit for them.
ReplyDeleteMany of these green messages got lost unfortunately, but as long as it is a free market and the green goods are for sale, especially when they are limited editions, that's what would happen.
Directly from their website:
ReplyDeleteWhat do we think about the bags re-selling on ebay for inflated prices?
At first we were upset when the bags appeared on e-bay but then we realised that this is to be expected when there is so little stock and so much demand and this has led to creating more awareness which was the purpose of this project. Unfortunately we have no control over bags appearing on eBay. Please note that this bag is not a charity project so charities are not losing out.
"Outrageous! Does Anya Hindmarch know about this? "
ReplyDeleteYes, she / the company are intentional creating false demand.
Rather than support these unethically made bags that are becoming an overly hyped fad, why not check out some alternatives? There are hundreds of really creative designs in reusable bags out there through reusable.com and environsax. If it's the message you want to convey, try the BYOB (bring your own bag) or Make Trade Fair bags, or even the sassy f*ck plastic.
Gah, is that bag craze still going on? I really hope those bags become passe and end up in the dumpsters...defeating the purpose of the bag.
ReplyDeleteHeh - if you're interested, click over to my page to see what I wrote about this, with some coincidental comments on a run-in I had with the Envirosax guy on another blog. (Basically, he was trying to shame people who already had canvas shopping bags into buying his company's product on the basis of fashion, which seems to me not exactly the epitome of eco-friendliness.) I made a big post back in mid-May about the various fashionable replacements for plastic bags, including the whole controversy over this Anya Hindmarch bag, and linked to some DIY alternatives.
ReplyDeleteLovely and sarcastic bag
ReplyDeleteI still have yet to see ONE person use that bag for anything besides looking fashionable. I've never seen anyone put groceries in it. . .it's hardly big enough.
ReplyDeleteI don't know . . . I think the message behind this bag was lost a long time ago. After all, I highly doubt that you would have wanted to buy this bag if it weren't for the fact that it is fashionable. There are plenty of ordinary bags out there that will fulfill the same purpose.
ReplyDeleteYou're just upset because you didn't get the "it" bag.