Moneybag
On the other side of earth, in a rudimentary luggage-manufacturing studio there was a different reality, a different experience away from the manicured men of retail. My experience was shredded fabric laying everywhere on the ground, and two dogs making their nest inside a corner of fabric. Walls are filled with more than 50 scrolls of leather each, while twelve workers toiled away using stop sewing machines, sewing packages of various colors. It reads like a rainbow. Our strange visitation does not even raise an eyebrow or stop a single hand from their needlework. They’re skilled and function like machines. Calm, maybe even numb. It is as if this calmness fuels the speed, and it is in the constant hum of the passionate moment, my eyes lock to the twin Louis Vuitton bags on the table.
Moneybag invites audiences to celebrate their comfort with a symbolic brand identity, as well as their confusion with the identity of its maker by alluding to a similarly made product. I believe this exchange mirrors what the consumer would feel if they understood the entirety of development associated with a product’s identity, and perceiving a culture of profit associated with what they purchased.
The process of making the moneybag installation was an opportunity for me to understand challenges of my culture and community in relationship to a global economy of counterfeit products, and my personal views as a designer and makers connected. I realized through this project that the maker has a unique place in the development of the products value through the time for making the product and space the product travels to get to the consumer. These are linked with products final value changing the perception of making on design and of design on consumption.