Every now and then, there’s a specific fashion item I lust for, that for whatever reason, I don’t give into. Maybe it’s the price. Maybe it’s the fact that I already bought too much stuff to fit into my suitcase. Or maybe it’s just because I didn’t realize how special the piece was, until I couldn’t stop thinking about it days, months, or even years later. These are the stories of these pieces that got away.
The Prada Damien Hirst Entomology Bag is truly a sight to behold: clear plexiglass housing real and brilliant beetles, with beaded, feathered embroidered insects atop the real bugs. Inspired by Hirst’s Entomology paintings, only 20 bags were ever produced in 2013, with a few promptly sold via silent auction benefiting the non-profit Reach Out to Asia.
There’s not much information about the Prada Damien Hirst Entomology Bags online. In fact, there aren’t even many photos. But they are obviously a collector’s item for any Prada fan or a fan of the artist, who is controversially known for using real animals and a human skull in his artwork. Of the 20 bags that weren’t sold at silent auction, the rest were apparently only sold in Qatar.
The beauty of the Prada Damien Hirst Entomology Bags is that each one is one-of-kind due to the natural state of having real bugs inside them. There’s something equally magical and macabre about the slightly prehistoric creatures suspended in clear plexiglass with a leather handle. The faux beaded insects add a twisted optical illusion–a sort of trompe l’oeil, if you will.
As for the price of the Prada Damien Hirst Entomology Bag? One website reported that at the time it was released in 2013, it was going for a cool ~$27,000. We’ve never actually seen this bag in real life, but it would be a dream to own and style. If there’s one bag we’d search an entire lifetime to own, this would be it. Imagine it with all the vintage archive Prada prints. In 2020, one of the 20 bags was featured in the “Bags: Inside Out” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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