It is becoming clear with further discovery that a lot the offline artefacts that I am discovering can commonly consist of clothing and accessories.
While discussing my project with a friend they brought up the infamous tomato purse. The fashion house Loewe created a leather purse based on a tweet. Ultimately taking the meme and literally turning it into an offline artefact.
Whilst not everyone will realise that the product was created because of a meme; since it still fits into the fashion house’s general aesthetic most would assume it is just another part of the collection.
It would be interesting to see if there are more examples in which an offline artefact is intentionally created and then sold as a product. A question does come up; since the product was intentionally made, does that take away from its legitimacy of being an offline artefact? Does turning a meme into a $3,000 luxury product strip it of its cultural edge and authenticity?
These intersection of tactile words like fashion design and online memes is an interesting phenomena. Moving forward, I want to track how offline memes can exists not only accidentally but intentionally and what that says about how memes shape culture.
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