It's been another weird week in retail. A Louis Vuitton-inspired toilet is being sold for every luxury-hunting art collector, Lunya released sleepwear inspired by "The Handmaid's Tale" and Sephora released a makeup sponge that looks like it belongs in a sex ed class.
This, and more, in this week's retail therapy.
Step aside, Kohler: Louis Vuitton toilets have arrived
They say not to flush your money down the toilet, but it's hard to heed that advice when someone creates a functional brown and gold monogrammed toilet out of the scraps of Louis Vuitton bags.
The "Loo-uis Vuitton Toilet," selling right now on Tradesy for $100,000 (for any math minds out there, that's about 1,000 times the price of an average toilet at The Home Depot), looks disturbingly like your last luxury knock-off bag ran into Midas and a pair of scissors.
Despite the fact that this toilet is literally the patchwork quilt of luxury, the product description places great emphasis on the quality of the materials, including "24 different authentic Louis Vuitton bags" that were "repurposed" so that whoever ends up buying this "toilet art" can be reminded just how rich they are every time they take a s***.
Who knew there could be so much money in toilets? Especially if you're willing to send your dignity down the drain.
Might need to get that @LouisVuitton toilet for my Michigan house ????
— Jeffree Star (@JeffreeStar) December 14, 2017
I just learned that there’s a $100,000 Louis Vuitton toilet. Bananas.
— Mellific (@Mel_lific) November 21, 2017
Handmaid's Tale sleepwear has customers seeing red
We're all entitled to make bad decisions. Remember the time Drew Barrymore thought she could make Crocs cool again (as if they ever were)?
Or, I don't know — if someone started selling lingerie that referenced a TV show about women being forced into sexual slavery. Surprise! Sleepwear company Lunya actually thought this was a good idea and started marketing a red pair of sexy silk pajamas as "Offred" — the title character in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," a book that feels a lot like the intersection of George Orwell's "1984" and a fascist version of Catholicism.
To be blunt about it: Naming a sexy product after a character who is repeatedly forced to have sex with an older man seems just one fry short of a Happy Meal. But we must have been wrong because, according to the Huffington Post, Lunya's founder and CEO told the publication that their decision was "rooted in the color itself, being a kind of ‘off Red color,' and our enthusiasm for the powerful nature of Elizabeth Moss's character in the show and as a symbol for our solidarity with the Resistance."
There's only one flaw: using a sex slave to promote sexy pajamas doesn't feel like "resistance" — it feels ignorant.
evergreen pic.twitter.com/09QnMeHpw8
— Victoria (@abagofpeas) April 18, 2018
— Noxeema Jackson ???? (@prime_bee) April 18, 2018
And in our continuing series of 'clothing lines that haven't been properly thought through' news https://t.co/69RixUl6fv
— Michael Moran (@TheMichaelMoran) April 17, 2018
As something of a connoisseur of Shit Ideas I must say this is a real delicacy. https://t.co/hqYJlImx4Z
— this is the only way I'll remember to buy milk (@distantgeese) April 17, 2018
Sephora puts sex ed back in makeup sponges
There's the intentional sexual references that make you cringe (see above), and then there's the woefully unintentional sexual references that make you doubt the intelligence of marketers all over again.
Enter, Sephora: the company may be flying high when it comes to creating a killer in-store experience, but when it comes to designing makeup sponges that don't look like male genitalia, they're apparently behind.
According to Cosmopolitan, the beauty retailer is getting absolutely slammed for releasing a makeup sponge that looks way too much like a penis and way too little like the "Ocean Crush" theme it's supposed to be inspired by.
Surprising no one, customers don't seem all that psyched about putting their foundation on with a sponge that has such uniquely-placed ripples in it.
OMG I'm going to Sephora right now to pick up their new penis sponge! YAY! pic.twitter.com/SCWrCFSDGD
— NADI (@OfficialNadi) April 11, 2018
I'm wondering what kind of penises women have seen for them to think the new Sephora sponge looks like a penis
— Marissa (@triplecancer_) April 17, 2018
I’m sorry but I can’t get on board with this design flaw ???????? @RawBeautyKristi @Laura88Lee @MannyMua733 @KathleenLights1 have you guys seen this?! pic.twitter.com/oz52f41ZPX
— April McCarthy (@xxaprilrose) April 11, 2018
ThredUp's down to climate change collection
Sometimes the easiest way to deal with hard truths is to joke about them. Exhibit A: ThredUp's climate change T-shirt line, which is simultaneously hilarious and depressing.
The collection, according to the Bustle, was created in collaboration with 12 artists who feel passionately about saving the Earth through (mostly) humorous designs. And by God — if it takes comparing the planet to a neglected significant other before we start taking climate change seriously — so be it.
Either way, customers can rest easy knowing their money will be going to a cause much more worthwhile than the $650 you could be spending on a "You are a pink Starburst" neon sign, one of just many items Starburst is selling, according to Marketing Dive.
Help! A retailer is trying to make consumerism stand for a good cause.