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  The Electric New Paper 9 May 07
Care for a designer grocery bag?
Big names in fashion world offer shoppers green options

DUMP your plastic bags, swipe your plastic credit card and get yourself a chic reusable designer grocery bag.

Hotshot names in fashion such as British designer Stella McCartney and Italian designer Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni have hopped onto the recycling bandwagon and created stylish shopping bags.

Even Hermes will launch its Silky Pop Hermes bag in the US this summer. It costs around US$960 ($1,454), and is made of hand-wrought silk which collapses into a wallet-size pouch of calfskin. A Hermes spokesman said that the Silky Pop Hermes bag is an upscale option to the extra fold-up shopping bag that many European women already carry in their purses.

She said: 'Say you're out walking. You decide to pick up a few apples, you pull out your bag.' But she quickly added: 'Though obviously, Hermes clients usually aren't shopping for their own groceries.'

UK designer Stella McCartney's organic canvas seller currently sells for US$495. Castiglioni said her foldable nylon bag was inspired by her upbringing: 'Reusable shopping bags are common in the Italian food shopping tradition.'

Consumers who do not want to splurge on these costly branded bags have cheaper options. Trader Joe's sells a US$1.99 bright blue-and-green print polypropylene sack, which has been a hit with consumers. And the extremely popular 'I'm Not a Plastic Bag' by British handbag designer Anya Hindmarch goes for US$15.

Recycling has become so trendy that the May issue of Vogue magazine urges readers to 'harness the power of fashion to change the way the nation shops'.

The growing trend of eco-consciousness has resulted in schemes such as the 'Bring-Your-Own-Bag' Day. Even Singapore introduced this scheme recently.

Thanks to awareness campaigns, consumers around the world now equate paper bags with dead trees and plastic bags with clogged landfills that take decades to decompose.
links

Bring Your Own Bag Day on the NEA website

Related articles on Singapore: plastic bags
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