Italian brand Boarini Milanesi is hoping to raise awareness around the need to protect our seas, which are becoming even more threatened than usual by non-biodegradable plastics due to the COVID-19 pandemic—with a bag.
The $7 million piece is the most expensive handbag ever produced. With its sale, nearly $1 million will be donated to cleaning the seas. The idea came from company co-founder Matteo Rodolfo Milanesi’s personal connection to the ocean; having lost his father when he was just a teenager, he has many memories linked to the water.
“We used to spend every summer at sea, between Greece and Turkey, and I was happiest when we would go on boat trips between the islands” he says. “Even though mass tourism was still a long way off, we would often see plastic bags floating on the water or patches of tar leaked by oil tankers. Recently, I have seen even more plastic in the sea than when I was a child, due to the pandemic and all the gloves and face masks that are being carelessly thrown away. This reminded me of my father, who used to dive into the water to collect the plastic bags and bottles floating in the sea and help me wipe the patches of tar that I found on the beach when I was building sand castles off my hands.”
Only three bags have been created, made of semi-shiny alligator and adorned with a diamond pavé accessory and 10 white-gold butterflies with sapphires (to represent the ocean’s depths), diamonds (the transparency of water when it falls in the form of rain) and Paraiba tourmalines (the uncontaminated Caribbean seas), for a total of more than 130 carats and 1,000-plus hours of work. —Vita Daily
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