The Bushwick Birkin
A lot of people have probably heard of the famous Hermès Birkin bag. In 1981, French actress, singer and muse Jane birkin happened to sit next to the CEO of the French luxury brand Hermés on a plane. She dropped her bag and all of her binders and files fell out on the floor. Birkin and the CEO started to talk about her unpractical bag and she got to sketch her dream bag on a piece of paper and three years later Hermés launched the Birkin bag. Since then, the bag has become a mark for status and infinite wallets due to its ridiculous price which can be anywhere from 7 000 $ to 70 000 $.
An Hermès Birkin
Jane Birkin with one of her Birkins
But what does that have to do with Telfar’s shopping tote? Another important part to the urban myth about the Birkin is that it’s extremely hard to get your hands on one since it’s only up for sale to clients of the house. The Telfar bag has basically reached the same amount of cult following as the Birkin, but as the brand self says “for those who don’t have Hermès kinda coins”.
Telfar is a black owned New York based brand established in 2005 by Telfar Clemens. Born in Queens, NY to Liberian parents, Telfar created his brand as an undergraduate at Pace university. Telfar has always been marketed as a unisex brand, long before the European fashion houses started dressing men in pussy bow blouses and Asap Rocky started wearing traditional Russian head scarves.
Gucci SS16 Menswear
Asap Rocky wearing Gucci
The brand was as much a fashion brand as an art project at first and had a small clientele of people in the New York club scene. With time the brand grew and in 2014 they launched The shopping tote, also known as “The Bushwick Birkin”.
It’s a vegan leather tote that comes in a large variety of colors with the brand logo on the front. It’s available in three different sizes modeled after the sizes of the shopping bags at the department store Bloomingdales. I would call the bag simple yet effective. It has one big and open compartment which makes it user friendly. It’s also friendly to the wallet as it doesn't cost more than 260 $ which is a key to the hype.
The bag didn't become that much of a hit immediately, but after Telfar Clemens won the C.F.D.A./Vogue Fashion Fund award, he invested the prize, 400 000 $, in the production and marketing of the bag. That led to a mass psychosis for the young generation working in New York’s fashion and art scene, there for the nickname “The Bushwick Birkin” which refers to the artsy neighbourhood Bushwick in Brooklyn. The hype spread internationally and the bag became increasingly harder to get as it constantly was out of stock.
Dua Lipa wearing a yellow Telfar bag in the largest size
Bella Hadid wearing an orange Telfar bag in the smallest size
Although being compared to the waspy Hermès Birkin, Telfar has a much more democratic approach to fashion than Hermès. In August this year Telfar announced that everyone who wanted would be able to get a Bushwick Birkin. For 24 hours, you would be able to go onto the brand’s website and decide which size and color you wanted and pre order as many bags as you wanted and the brand would make one for you. This is an indicator of how young brands are changing the fashion industry. Instead of having a huge stock of bags that might not be sold, Telfar got a much more precise description of the demand for his bags and is currently making them after that demand. I ended up ordering one myself, and we who did are expected to receive our bags around the end of this year when all of the bags have been made.
On the “About” page at https://www.telfar.net/ it says “It’s not for you - it’s for everyone”, which is what I think is what describes both Telfar and the fashion brands of our young generation, which we have seen during the black lives matter movement. The big European fashion houses who each earn over billions of dollars per year have posted a black picture on instagram, while the younger brands are the ones who have donated money to organisations, while making way less money.