By AMEREA DITSCHE, Editor-in-Chief
If 18 miles of books isn’t enough for you, The Strand, NYC’s beloved bookstore, offers a line of merchandise boasting the shop’s name. Sweatshirts, hats, canvas totes and more are all easily accessible in the back corner of the store’s first floor. Well—until now.
Bottega Veneta, a fashion house based out of Milan, Italy has launched a collaboration with the store. The iconic tote is now available in three different styles from Bottega ranging from $1900-$3800. On the surface, it seems exciting that a luxury brand is attempting to appeal to the masses; but honestly, this is just another symptom of late-stage capitalism.
The merchandise offered in The Strand’s flagship location is affordable, a standard tote will run you about $20. The Bottega collab is taking something that is loved by the middle class and making it inaccessible to them. Let’s be honest, the people who can afford an almost $4000 bag are probably not the people shopping for used books, or even doing their own shopping at all.
I have trouble understanding the “Why?” of it all. Aside from the obvious answer, “to make money,” what is the point of this?
New York City is incredibly expensive to live in, with many of its inhabitants struggling to make ends meet. For decades, the city has hosted this dichotomy of the incredibly wealthy, and the incredibly poor. Taking a staple of the city and flaunting a needlessly more expensive version comes off as a spit in the face.
Canvas tote bags, once reserved for grocery trips, are now in style and a staple of any trendy, youthful wardrobe. Which again begs the question, who are these for? I can’t imagine too many teenage girls have a few grand to spare on something they’re going to put water bottles and keys in.
According to the job-sharing site Indeed, an average employee at The Strand probably makes around $15.55 an hour. An employee at this wage would have to work 122 hours to afford the cheapest bag in this collection. And that is assuming they spend the money earned across those hours on literally nothing else. A product their employees can’t even afford is absurd; can someone working sales at Bottega store even afford this? According to Glassdoor, a sales associate at the luxury retailer makes $21 an hour, meaning they can afford the bag in a mere 90 hours! Two and half weeks of work for a bag designed after grocery bags!
According to the literature-based website Literary Hub, the CEO of The Strand is a multi-millionaire who invests in Amazon, which as the publication states, is the largest competitor to small bookstores worldwide. With that, I’ll have to agree with a sentiment from their article, don’t buy this bag!
After a pandemic that crippled the nation financially, it is quite a silly business move to focus your attention on the wealthy. Bottega Veneta, I understand, they’ve been a luxury brand and I wouldn’t expect them to appeal to me. The Strand’s veering off course, however, feels like betrayal.
