A 6M Euro Handbag to Save the Oceans
DIAMOND WATERS: The sky is certainly the limit when it comes to luxury.
An Italian niche accessories brand, Boarini Milanesi, has just unveiled a hyper luxurious bag that retails for 6 million euros. How is that possible? The top-handle bag is crafted from alligator skin and festooned with 10 white gold butterflies studded with sapphires, diamonds and Paraiba tourmalines totaling more than 130 carats. Only three of the bags, which requires 1,000 hours of work to be completed, are to be produced.
Behind the astonishing opulence of the project lies a giving-back strategy. In fact, 800,000 euros from the sale of each bag will be donated to institutions dedicated to ridding the sea of plastics.
This decision is deeply linked to Boarini Milanesi’s cofounder Matteo Rodolfo Milanesi’s personal history, who wanted to celebrate the love for the sea of his father, who passed away when he was only a teenager.
“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. 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,” Milanesi said. “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.”
In keeping with the sea theme, the brand’s cofounder and creative director Carolina Boarini selected gems purposefully. “Blue sapphires represent the depths of the oceans, Paraiba tourmaline reminds us of the uncontaminated Caribbean seas and diamonds refer to the transparency of water when it falls in the form of rain,” she explained.
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