Glitzy Whole Foods bags spark Pamplona-style run
Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
Published July 20, 2007 at midnight
If you're itchin' to buy one of those limited edition designer shopping sacks at a metro Whole Foods store, you better, um, bag those plans.
The minimania over the $15 off-white canvas totes, emblazoned with "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" in blue, had hundreds of people lining up in the rain at Whole Foods in New York this week.
Sales of the bags in Southeast Asia were halted after their debut last month in Taiwan month triggered a stampede that sent 30 people to the hospital and required riot police, according to The New York Times. The Hong Kong sale was so wild that cops were forced to shut down the entire shopping mall.
Metro-area Whole Foods stores have been flooded with calls about the eco-friendly sacks, created by hot London bag designer Anya Hindmarch to draw attention to the fact that Americans toss 100 billion plastic shopping bags a year. They end up littering the planet or clogging landfills where the plastic doesn't break down for centuries.
Alas, the coveted bags — photographed on the arms of celebs like Reese Witherspoon, Keira Knightley and Petra Nemcova — were only sold at Whole Foods in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Despite a three-bag limit per customer, the 20,000 sacks swiftly vanished.
"We're getting lots of calls from people wanting the bag," said Chad Penewell, a clerk at the Whole Foods in Cherry Creek. "But, unfortunately, it was really only available on the East Coast and, to my knowledge, they're all sold out.
"And then we have a thousand people who think we're going to have them in the store," he added. "Anya Hindmarch is a big, famous bag designer, so there was a big buzz about it in the New York fashion world even before they came out. I believe they were pre-sold, so they were almost sold out before they even came out."
Well, at least Hindmarch — whose regular designer bags sell for up to $1,700 — and Whole Foods bagged the environmental awareness they wanted.
gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com
or 303-954-5486
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