Beyoncé Is a Fan of Pussy Pouches — And You Should Be Too!
A pussy pouch with vajazzle outline. Photo: Courtesy
A statement bag is key part to your wardrobe, but what exactly are your purses saying about you? That you like chic understated luxury? Or McDonald’s fries? (Thanks Moschino.) If you’re carrying designs by Rachel Feinberg, you’re proclaiming to the world that policing your lady parts is not okay.
Feinberg’s the genius behind Pussy Pouches—yes, you read that correctly—purses that are very directly inspired by vaginas. (There’s even a vajazzled version!) And the Parsons grad came up with the idea of her vulvic bags while on the subway, of course.
“I was reading about how women behave in space in a book by Marilyn Frye (The Politics of Reality) —and so the subway was the perfect laboratory of what I was reading about. The book was about how women occupy less space. And I looked around and women were sitting with their purse in their laps and their legs crossed and that’s how the pussy pouch was born,” Feinberg told Yahoo Style.
@beyonce/Instagram
What started as a subway observation while in school has morphed into a line with seven main designs, from a clutch to an overnight bag, in a range of colors and vajazzling options. And the response has been huge. No, really. Beyoncé, transgender model Andreja Pejic, and Pussy Riot (naturally) are all fans.
“I was with my dad, and I started screaming, Dad! Dad!, Beyoncé wore my purse! I had no idea she was going to wear it. I’m very particular who is going to wear it,” says Feinberg.
After that she knew who else she wanted to have rock the pouch: Pussy Riot. Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova were speaking at an art fair last year when Feinberg got the, er, gonads to approach them.
“I waited until the end, and I just raised my hand and said, ‘I think what you guys are doing is commendable and brave,’ and they loved [the bag]. After the Q&A, they said thank you and said it was amazing. That was just the coolest.”
The good news is that you don’t have to be Beyoncé or Pussy Riot or a top model to wear the bags, but you do have to be ready to garner a bit of attention. Feinberg admits that her purses get people talking, and that’s the point.
Pussy Riot with the Pussy Pouches. Photo: Courtesy
“It’s a conversation piece. I realize my product is nothing like anyone’s seen before,” she says. Though some of the discussions have veered into inappropriate territory, she encourages Pussy Pouch’s wearers to take the higher ground. “It’s a greater conversation about the female body and women not being afraid to own their bodies.”
And that conversation is the ultimate goal. “I want the bags to create a discussion about policing female sexuality and make the word ‘pussy’ not taboo. Make female genitalia a topic to be discussed,” says Feinberg.
And in case you were wondering, she owns her femininity by carrying the vajazzled crossbody bag everyday.
Pussy pouches, $160-$895 with extra fees for vajazzling, damnsel.com
