Look five, Moschino spring/summer 2025
The latest fashion essential is…. a luxury bleach bottle? Moschino’s recent Spring/Summer 2025 collection, presented during Milan Fashion Week, was cheekily named “Piece of Sheet,” and intended to transform everyday household objects into “objects of fascination.” Look five showcased a model with a bag that looked like a Clorox bleach bottle, while look three featured another model dressed in a white asymmetrical pirate-sleeve ruffle dress, complemented by a kettle-shaped purse. “The ordinary becomes extraordinary, our worldview shifted,” says the official press release from Moschino.
This is not the first instance of Moschino reimagining domestic items as fashion statements. Introduced in 2015, Moschino’s Fresh Couture fragrance appeared in a Windex-style bottle. Similarly, Balenciaga’s Demna is recognized for transforming seemingly mundane objects into high-end staples, as seen with the USD 1,790 calfskin bag mimicking a black garbage bag, the USD 2,288 tote resembling Ikea’s “Frakta” bag, and the whimsical USD 1,850 potato chip bag famously carried by actor Michael Shannon at the 2024 Met Gala themed “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”
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Converting ordinary items into luxury goods has proven lucrative as “these items ignite conversations,” reports The Wall Street Journal. The piece highlights that many shoppers may not purchase these bags solely because of the brand, but rather see them as bait. With Gen Z and millennials actively engaged online on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which serve as “significant catalysts for fashion evolution,” a brand can gain a cultural edge through virality, as noted in the article.
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Emotional Consumption
Emotional consumption suggests that buyers invest in products not for their functionality, but for the feelings they invoke. In luxury fashion, brands often do not just market leather bags; they promote a sense of status or a feeling associated with wealth. In a notable year, 2023, MSCHF (pronounced “mischief”) highlighted the absurd by creating a viral minuscule bag and whimsical red boots. Their tiny tote, measuring just 657 by 222 and 700 micrometers—similar to a grain of salt—was inspired by Louis Vuitton’s iconic tote. It aimed to critique the “absurdity of ever-shrinking luxury bags.”
At an online auction, this “bag” garnered around USD 63,750. MSCHF went on to surpass this with cartoon-like rubber boots, both pieces serving as social commentary. Crafted from a TPU rubber outer shell, the abstract boot shape intended to “liberate us from reality’s confines” stated that “the merging of virtual and real aesthetics drives us toward supernormal stimuli.”
Fashion’s playful twist on ordinary objects—infused with fantasy, surrealism, and whimsy—has enhanced the spotlight on mundane experiences. Erewhon supermarket in California capitalizes on consumers’ desire for luxury within the everyday amidst rising grocery prices. The Federal Trade Commission has noted supermarket executives celebrating how inflation has positively impacted their profits. Recognized as one of the priciest supermarkets globally, Erewhon’s reputation for premium products and high prices on everyday items has attracted celebrities and the super-rich.
An MSN article pointed out that Erewhon provides premium offerings such as valet parking for an annual fee of USD 200. The store showcases a wide array of goods, from gourmet smoothies and ready meals to hyper-oxygenated water. However, Erewhon’s pricing significantly exceeds that of other upscale retailers; for example, they sell a 2.5-pound organic rotisserie chicken for USD 22.50, compared to Whole Foods’ USD 11.99. This further illustrates America’s enduring obsession with hypermarkets, particularly Erewhon Market—a stark reminder of the divide between aspiration and reality.
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Capitalism or Camp?
The fashion sector is intrinsically camp. Camp serves as a prevalent marketing strategy across various industries, as famously described in Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, Notes on Camp. Camp is primarily about exaggeration, caricature, and parody. According to Sontag, camp interacts with serious matters but cannot be taken earnestly because it challenges the very foundations of seriousness. Take for example Fendi’s Chupa Chups lollipop collaboration for the Autumn/Winter 2024 fashion show, unveiling the Chupa Chups lollipop holder. The piece showcases details reminiscent of the iconic Selleria craftsmanship, embellished with a metal FF logo. It is packaged in a special Chupa Chups x FENDI box, featuring five limited-edition Cacao-Vanilla lollipops, which pay homage to the five Fendi sisters.
As reported previously by LUXUO, camp art reinterprets tragedy humorously, transforms sincerity into artificiality, and trivializes seriousness. Thus, camp emerges as a robust tool for subversion, with caricature presenting the unique capacity to invert established power dynamics. This is notably significant amidst the cost-of-living crisis affecting major urban centers like New York and London.
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Has capitalism essentially degraded the supermarket experience? Fashion’s extravagant reinterpretation of the supermarket realm in campaigns and collections has certainly amplified the recognition of the ordinary, transforming essential shopping into a spectacle of consumerism. Transforming something that seems trivial into a surreal runway presentation holds significance. Previously, supermarkets served as locations for purchasing necessary items, only for fashion to make them feel frivolous. By inflating prices well beyond their production costs for greater profit margins, these large businesses continue to show a disconnection from reality, catering to only a small fraction of their clientele. Erewhon Market encapsulates the trend of elevating grocery shopping into a lavish experience, often attracting consumers seeking aesthetics more than practicality.
While some might contend that Chanel’s Autumn/Winter 2014 collection by Karl Lagerfeld represents a modern-day echo of Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let Them Eat Cake” remark, it could equally signify a critique of materialistic desires in a consumer-driven world. The irony lies in a luxury fashion brand using satire to comment on materialism, an intrinsic component of the fashion industry meant to incite desire in its consumers.
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