Issue 2

Loewe and the Tomato Clutch: Are Groceries the New Luxury Product?

By: Olivia Lyes

Food and fashion have always been uniquely entwined within consumer culture; from the rich excess of the Baroque period to the idea of ‘dressing’ for dinner in the Gilded age, even when eating at your own dining table. This intersection capitalises on a visceral reality no human can escape from: what we put in and on our bodies.

Throughout history luxury clothing, particularly women’s fashion, has centred around physical silhouettes, and therefore their diet. A woman of the Georgian era utilised the corset to slim her waist, with a pannier to widen her hips. If she was wealthy or sociable, the luxuries of game, wine and exotic fruit were just as integral to her image. Around this time, not just in the Western world but globally, consumption became the ultimate display of wealth. Post-war, when the economy slowly started to thrive once more, small luxuries became not only accessible but convenient. One could flip through the newest Vogue, and Christian Dior’s “New Look”, whilst waiting for their Salisbury steak TV dinner to finish cooking in the microwave.

But how did we get from there to here?

Culture moves in a never-ending cycle. It begins with edible and wearable luxuries being exclusive, then comes the desire to own, to consume, and so the product is cheapened, filled with chemicals and poor materials, and thus made available to the regular person. Wastefully, once this cheapening occurs, the product is replaced with something not entirely new, but re-packaged. Take the post-war woman I described earlier, she is the middle man of the cycle. The exclusive product has been cheapened for her, and soon, the luxury product will double-back on itself – the processed pleasure of convenient luxury will no longer be desirable. Instead, we live in an age where the wealthy and influential flaunt their farm grown, GMO-free fresh food, and their luxury long-standing basics; a t-shirt that the rest of us would have to take out a loan to purchase and eating fresh fruit and vegetables only bought from high-end supermarkets.

Still, there’s more to it than that. Food and fashion have become intrinsically linked, as luxury fashion powerhouse Loewe has shown us in recent years. Culturally, Loewe, as a brand, is often promoted as one of the few characteristically artistic fashion brands, known for playing with ironic and abstract visual concepts. The iconic Loewe ‘Tomato Clutch’ started off as a simple twitter meme of an heirloom tomato, captioned “This is so Loewe I can’t explain it”. Loewe, of course, then turned this meme into a red leather tomato clutch, as their Instagram suggests “harvested from a viral moment.” This viral moment gave Loewe the traction to announce their vegetable inspired Loewe X Paula Ibiza Summer Collection. The collection is signified by it’s use of seasonal vegetables, herbs and plants, a “collection that sees different vegetables appear across clothes and bags, and crafted into accessories.” Through this collection Loewe utilizes viral trends, combining the wearable and the edible in the cultural sphere. A key example of this are their bag charms. The Loewe X Paula collection offers tulip, lavender and vine tomato bag charms, retailing at over £350 each. However, this fusion of food and fashion is not entirely new to Loewe’s product design and marketing. The brand has been developing visual concepts endorsing fresh food since as early as February 2024, producing a beaded squeeze bag with a lettuce motif, and later in October 2024, a beaded radish bag charm.

Although the use of seasonal vegetables throughout visual concepts and marketing is certainly interesting, what does it say about our current economical and cultural climate? A high fashion brand such as Loewe exploiting seasonal vegetables which once were easily accessible, healthy and could be homegrown, and elevating it as a marketable product, shows just how the cultural cycle transforms to meet the demands of consumer desire. Once, the ultimate show of wealth would be lobsters and champagne, but now you can go to Cost-co and buy that in bulk and for cheap. The current show of status and wealth is fresh, non-processed groceries – and a £450 tomato bag charm to prove it. 

Source: 

1. https://www.instagram.com/loewe/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet