When Marie Antoinette once said, albeit apocryphally, “let them eat cake” she probably would’ve never expected that the dolls at New York Fashion week would be wearing it too.
After a much needed hot girl summer, the celebrity style set, supermodels and fashion industry insiders are back to work, taking to New York City for a week long affair of runway shows and off-schedule parties on either side of the East River.
The annual New York Fashion week attracts the who’s-who of established and emerging designers across both coasts, however it seems that this season a new idée fixe has emerged to captivate the illustrious crowd.
As it transpires, the hottest item to have at NYFW isn’t Gigi Hadid’s latest cashmere creations, or a piece from Sandy Liang’s preppy, ballet-core inspired accessories line.
Rather, the newest object of our affection is food, though not in the literal sense.
While influencers and editors dine on caviar bumps and drink manhattans and martinis in the Boom Boom Room, our favourite fashion designers are pioneering for a grocery chic future, proving that the next iteration of sustainable style can be found from our favourite organic and whole food markets.
We’re of course, talking about the rise of (proverbial) edible handbags.
Though eco-chic connoisseur’s like Coperni and Stella McCartney have been heralding in apple and mushroom leather handbags, Brooklyn-based avant garde designer Collina Strada took this motif one step further by sending a literal broccoli down the runway.
The cruciferous vegetable was adorned with Swarovski crystals, of course.
Hillary Taymour’s Collina Strada has become a vanguard of this new wave of environmentally-friendly, Y2K inspired designers that have Depop girlies eating out of the palm of her hand.
Lauded by A-listers, Collina Strada has straddled the craft-core and kitchen kitsch aesthetics masterfully, without losing her distinct activist ethos.
So while we’re not surprised to see models like Hari Nef and Ella Emhoff carry leafy greens down the runway.
But as it always is with NYFW, the edible accessory movement isn’t just reserved for the former-fashion-school-graduate gang.
In fact, even the most exclusive fashion bearers are pushing for food accessories to take it’s place alongside haute couture and ready-to-wear.
This was best demonstrated at Fendi’s triumphant New York Fashion Week showcase. It was nothing short of a spectacle, with fashion’s elite gathered to toast what is arguably Silvia Venturini Fendi’s best creation, a happy 25th birthday.
The category was baguette, and Kim Jones, Marc Jacobs and Tiffany & Co. delivered.
Baguettes were fixed to beanies, stitched onto socks and and even as a keyring on the Fendi sunshine. It was a baguette bonanza.
Since 1997, the baguette bag has become an important reference in the cultural zeitgeist, no thanks to our favourite fictional over-paid columnist Carrie Bradshaw. Of course, it wasn’t just the baguette that received the accessories treatment.
Across town at Dauphinette, food and fashion mingled for a masterfully crafted cacophony of flavours and textures.
It was wearable art realness. But the collection’s pièce de résistance took the fashion set’s favourite pastry, the croissant, to new heights by attaching a gold-link chain to it’s flaky crust and calling it a bag.
The irony of fashion’s recent fixation with food is not lost on us.
Many Australians are struggling to afford groceries, the cost of living rising and the average pay stagnant, so while the sardonic rise in food as accessories can be enjoyed for its entertaining qualities, it’s not without criticism.
We may not be able to eat the cake, or wear it either, but you can bet we’ll be admiring from afar.
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