Mulberry Takes On The Tote

Tote bags have long provided a portable canvas for art masterpiece lookalikes. But leave it to Mulberry to consign wan reproductions to museum gift shops and make the bags themselves into works of art worthy of display in its New Bond Street flagship store windows. By teaming up with London’s tastemaker FRED gallery, Mulberry has, er, bagged artists Peter Jones (pictured), Kate Davis, Simon English, and Paul Hosking for exclusive limited-edition totes. English, whose saucy, pink-patterned “Maxim-meow” bag will be showcased at Mulberry from today, designed his tote as a an homage to Daphne du Maurier’s gothic romance Rebecca. “I always thought of Mulberry as being synonymous with the nautical headscarves sported in the shires of my youth,” he confessed. “I am clearly wrong. The Mulberry of today is very different.” And thanks to Mulberry and FRED, so is the tote.

—Ana Finel Honigman
Photo: Courtesy of Mulberry