Fall's Hottest Accessory Is Uncooked Pasta

A true visionary can create art from the mundane. Behold, a new leather handbag crafted to look exactly like a box of Barilla penne pasta. It's just like Madonna said: beauty's where you find it. In this case, New York–based artist Nik Bentel found it in his pantry.

I first spied the handbag on Twitter yesterday, when fashion account HYPEBAE tweeted photos of the bag. Per a press release on the artist's website, the pasta bag "reimagines the potential of the classic box of pasta that we all know so well." The artist designed the bag as an "irreverent take on the past year of staying inside" in hopes that the accessory will play on pandemic mundanity. "During the most brutal months of the pandemic, just about everyone had a similar experience of staring at the box of pasta, so why not try to reimagine the box's purpose into something a little more exciting!" the release reads. The artist also specifies that the project is "in no way affiliated with Barilla."

The bag is nearly identical to a standard Barilla box (plus a stylish gold chain strap) and is constructed from UV-printed leather that mimics the box's design. Personally, I'd love to get my hands on one of these things. At $199 a pop, they're pricey, but admittedly not as cost-prohibitive as I originally imagined given their soon-to-be-cult status. The bags are, however, extremely limited in quantity. "This is a limited edition handbag of 100 units," the press release reads. "Once it is sold out, there will not be any more made."

If you're interested in rocking a pasta bag this fall, mark your calendar now: the bags drop on the artist's website on August 11 at 10 a.m. EST. For those of you asking, "Why? Why design a pasta bag?" my reply is simply: why not? "F*ck it," the artist's website reads. "It's a bag now." A very fashionable sensibility, if you ask me.