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<!-- E IIMA --> The must-have bag of the season
costs a fiver from a supermarket, and hits the shelves on
Wednesday. Is it a fashion statement or for those taking a green
stance - and does it matter?
This season sustainable
is the new black. Eco-friendly used to be a byword for dull and
worthy, but now it's officially fashionable,
darling.
The product
spearheading the trend is a bag made from unbleached cotton, which
cost £5 at selected Sainsbury's stores and sold out within an hour
of going on sale on Wednesday morning.
It might not sound
A-list, but the bag emblazoned with "I am not a plastic bag" has
been designed by the "queen of bagland" Anya
Hindmarch.
The aim is simple, to
encourage people not to use plastic carrier bags. The bag has been
produced in partnership with We Are What We Do, a non-profit
campaign group that has set out to change the world in small
steps.
The bag's must-have
credentials were firmly secured when it was chosen as the
goodie-bag for guests at the 2007 Vanity Fair Oscar night party.
Only 20,000 are going on sale - each of the branches stocking it is
restricted to just 30 bags and customers can buy only one
each.
People
queued for hours when a few of the bags were sold at Hindmarch's
London boutique last month, and they have been changing hands for
up to £200 on eBay. The simple bag has become a symbol of ethical
intent - and a very fashionable one at that.
Ethical
intent
Brits use an estimated
10bn plastic carrier bags each year. But is this bag more of a
fashion statement than a green one?
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<!-- E IBOX --> It's made of cotton but in China,
perhaps not the most environmental choice given that it has to be
shipped thousands of miles to the UK. And it's cheap for a
Hindmarch bag - hers typically sell for up to £1,000 - but it's a
lot more than the 10p charged for "bags for life" available at most
supermarkets.
But it doesn't matter
why people buy it, says one marketing expert. What's important is
the huge amounts of publicity the bag generates. On that score, the
bag has been the charity's most successful endeavour to
date.
"So what if people buy
it because it's a fashion statement," says Chris Arnold, creative
partner at ethical marketing company Feel. "If the person who uses
the bag is shallow and driven by fashion, it still helps the planet
because they haven't used a plastic one.
"We have to accept that
we live in a wealthy, consumer-based society and work with it. It's
easy to pick apart any ethical campaign, but if it helps make
ethical values more fashionable, then that's
great."
An ethical bag for keen consumers? This is
something of an oxymoron, given that shopping in itself draws
heavily on the planet's resources.
Consciousness
raising
Ms Hindmarch knows
first-hand the power fashion has, and is prepared to use it. "As a
luxury fashion brand we are in a position where we can influence,"
she says.
The bag was never
designed to save the planet single-handedly - the purpose was to
cast a spotlight on an important issue, says a spokesman for We Are
What We Do.
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Some aspects of the
project may not be ideal, such as producing the bag in China, but
no one is making a profit and the bags were made in a factory
"deemed ethical" by the charity. The project was also
carbon-offset.
"If this bag plants an
idea in people's heads that will make them think before
automatically reaching for a plastic one then it's a success," he
says.
It's win-win for
everyone involved, says brand expert Jonathan Gabay. "The very
smart thing about this bag is that it's getting an important
environmental message across to a mass market.
"The consumer looks
good and so do all the companies involved. The bag sends out a
message that the consumer is intelligent for buying it and the
companies for producing it."
By making the bag
exclusive, Ms Hindmarch is not damaging her own upmarket brand, he
adds.
Source :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6587169.stm
