ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Gifted Bags
Department stores are vying to give their customers the chicest, most durable bags, “investing millions of dollars in new flourishes like plastic-coated paper (Macy’s and Juicy Couture) and heavy fabric cord handles (Abercrombie & Fitch and Scoop),” reports The New York Times. The idea is to capitalize on growing consumer interest in “reusability.” Though the bags are rather costly to produce, women who use them daily for months to carry their pumps to the office or their clothes to the cleaners become walking advertisements for a store.
Lord & Taylor, for one, recently spent a bazillion dollars to redesign its store bag, and by all accounts, it’s a hit:
After making a purchase at Lord & Taylor a few weeks ago, Allana Cummings, 19, of Irvington, N.J., said, she quickly adopted the chain’s newly redesigned bag, with its eye-catching white color and seemingly indestructible paper, as “my second purse.”…
A year ago, employees at Lord & Taylor decided that their bags had become a liability. “It was the thinnest, most inexpensively constructed bag you could offer - a true throwaway bag,” said the chief executive, Jane Elfers.
So the retailer asked David Lipman, a marketing executive, to help design a new bag. Over six months, Mr. Lipman and his staff spared no expense. They eventually settled on a rich, white canvaslike paper - Mr. Lipman would disclose no further details - and thick, synthetic handles.
Designers obsessed over every detail. The white exterior extends into the bag’s orange interior one-sixteenth of an inch, no more, no less, and the words Lord & Taylor are embossed, rather than printed, a less expensive technique. …
“It’s a gorgeous bag,” said Mozel Browne, 75, who said she started saving Lord & Taylor’s shopping bags since the redesign this fall. “I could honestly give it away as a gift.”
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