There was a time, not too long ago, when a purse shaped like a baguette felt like a thrilling\u2014even subversive\u2014novelty in the fashion world. It was a witty wink at consumerism, an unexpected crossover between daily sustenance and high-end design that delighted insiders and casual observers alike. Today, however, consumers hardly bat an eye when they see that Moschino has manufactured a trompe l\u2019\u0153il celery purse, or that Big Bud Press is producing a hot-dog-and-pretzel-print jumpsuit in collaboration with a local Los Angeles bar. How did the industry get here, and has the obsession with edible aesthetics finally become a little too much?<\/p>\n
Fashion has long found inspiration from the culinary world, but the recent influx of food-fueled prints, graphics, and trompe l\u2019\u0153il accessories that picked up steam during the COVID-19 pandemic has now reached a definitive cultural tipping point. Today, there are truly countless examples of these food motifs and edible, wearable trompe l\u2019\u0153il creations available across all price points. <\/p>\n
The range of options is vast and staggering. Loewe\u2019s summer collection featured a $4,150 lambskin tomato clutch, while mass-market giant Walmart introduced a line of rotisserie chicken bag-like purses and charms starting at a modest $5.97. As with many modern micro-trends, this trajectory started on the runways of high fashion and steadily worked its way down to mass-market ubiquity. <\/p>\n
In 2020, a hyperrealistic chocolate chip cookie went down one of New York Fashion Week\u2019s most buzzed-about fall runways. It protruded from a black leather purse by the designer Puppets and Puppets, a design that quickly went viral for its whimsical, unexpected inclusion of a classic dessert on a high-end luxury handbag. The then-emerging brand quickly made food a central theme of its creative vision. Its subsequent collections featured cake-topped aviator caps, Ferrero Rocher-heeled shoes, and beeswax-sculpted cheese hats\u2014a series of absurdist, food-inspired designs capable of achieving instant social media virality. <\/p>\n
Prior to working in fashion, Puppets designer Carly Mark worked as a contemporary artist whose pieces revolved around candies and snacks. As she explained to the Business of Fashion in 2023, the Puppets universe felt like an ideal pairing given what she considers to be the fundamental motivators of both food and fashion: pleasure and money. <\/p>\n
During the pandemic lockdown years, the much-duped \u201cstrawberry dress\u201d took over TikTok feeds globally, while the Tombolo Company found a massive hit on its hands with its vongole (clam) shirt. Debuting in 2019, the seafood-themed shirt found its peak popularity in 2021. The garment appeared prominently in Vogue in 2020, and lifestyle publication InsideHook called it an obvious bedfellow to day-drinks, rooftop gatherings, and weekend getaways\u2014effectively cementing it as a cultural status symbol. <\/p>\n
Around the same time, Katie Kimmel\u2019s hand-painted T-shirts made an enthusiastic love for chicken parmesan akin to being a devout sports fan. By 2022, the fashion media dubbed \u201cseafood kitsch\u201d the official look of the summer as items like Rachel Antonoff\u2019s super-popular seafood-tower dress flew off digital shelves.<\/p>\n
Why was food so primed to become a dominant motif in clothing at this specific juncture in contemporary culture? One could make a compelling argument that these trends have deep roots in the millennial optimism years. Earlier in the 2000s and 2010s, the concept of the \u201cfoodie\u201d was newly minted and rapidly expanding. Brands began printing tongue-in-cheek food- and coffee-related motifs and slogans\u2014with a fervent love of avocados coming readily to mind\u2014on casual hipster apparel. <\/p>\n
This era fostered the growing cultural fervor around the idea that \u201cyou are what you eat.\u201d That period served as a critical stepping stone in the evolution toward the far more elaborate and pervasive marketability of food-as-identity that consumers witness today. <\/p>\n
Cole Poska, a content creator who serves as a partner and creative director at Beyond Studios, notes that the appeal runs deep. \u201cFood brands have something most brands would kill for: decades of nostalgia, iconic identities, and consumers who are borderline obsessed with them,\u201d Poska tells Eater. <\/p>\n
Poska\u2019s own Instagram page frequently reimagines restaurant merchandise purely for creative exploration. His conceptual designs for Cheesecake Factory apparel famously went viral, including a hat meticulously designed to resemble the restaurant\u2019s iconic brown bread loaf. He points out that people will defend their favorite fast-food order with the intensity usually reserved for a family member, backed by a level of brand loyalty that is notoriously difficult to manufacture artificially. The same fierce loyalty could be said about an individual’s martini order or favorite local taco spot; it all functions as a way of telling the world who we are through what we consume.<\/p>\n
Yet, cultural fatigue is undoubtedly setting in. By 2024, Bon App\u00e9tit explicitly asked the question, \u201cWhy Does Every Dress Have Pasta and Cocktail Shrimp on It?\u201d As the inherent novelty factor of a shrimp-print dress has worn off, observers and industry critics alike are left asking whether there is any true longevity for these food-as-fashion moments. Digital feeds constantly overflow with products that are hurriedly designed for flash-in-the-pan viral trends, many of which are quickly destined for landfills. This disposable cycle is exacerbated when an object prioritizes shock value and cheap gimmicks over genuine function and cohesive brand identity.<\/p>\n
This phenomenon is inextricably linked to the accelerated speed of modern trend cycles and increasingly shortened consumer attention spans. However, as Leah Asmelash wrote for CNN, the rising cost of everyday food casts an increasingly sinister shadow over food-themed fashion. By 2026, a $425 designer cardigan emblazoned with embroidered oysters carries far less originality than it did a few years prior. At best, it dips into banality; at worst, it evokes imagery straight out of The Hunger Games, with the wearer signaling not just whimsy, but financial comfort and, more importantly, being consistently well-fed. <\/p>\n
In that light, beyond its role in personal identity, food has transformed into a more overt status symbol than ever before. A luxury sweater touting one\u2019s appreciation for caviar functions as shorthand for access to elite culinary experiences. Conversely, sporting a mass-market, budget-friendly version purchased from platforms like Temu reads more like wearing a blatantly faux designer belt.<\/p>\n
If it is possible for the industry to escape this sense of accelerated-trend-cycle disposability, salvation may require a much more subtle approach than carrying a handbag shaped like a giant stick of butter. <\/p>\n
Sam Salad is the co-founder of Meals, a Los Angeles-based, workwear-inspired apparel company that, by its own description, \u201cbakes food culture into apparel, blurring the lines between the clothes we eat and the food we wear.\u201d Utility remains at the forefront of the brand, which offers classic chef pants cut with a fuller silhouette in both neutral, basic colors and subdued aesthetic homages to blue cheese and watermelon. <\/p>\n
When Meals launched in 2019, Salad was selling premium denim along Venice\u2019s Abbot Kinney Boulevard\u2014a known hotbed of hyper-photogenic food culture and trendy restaurants like Gjelina that ultimately helped inspire his brand. <\/p>\n
\u201cDesign today has to translate across languages and platforms,\u201d Salad tells Eater. <\/p>\n
Food is hardly a novel collaborator for fashion designers, even if today\u2019s hyper-fast trend cycle has kicked the concept into overdrive. \u201cFood is totally universal,\u201d Salad says, pointing out historical precedents like Issey Miyake, who once merchandised a pleated clothing collection to resemble little omakase sushi sets. He cites that collection among other successful fashion-meets-food moments, such as the iconic lobster dress designed collaboratively by Salvador Dal\u00ed and Elsa Schiaparelli. <\/p>\n
At the time of its creation in 1937, the dress caused a major scandal. It represented a conformity-defying sartorial stance and was famously worn by Wallis Simpson. Decades later, heavily altered iterations of the concept can be found mass-produced online for a fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n
As the market currently stands, one clear way out of corny food-motif purgatory is for brands\u2014whether in fashion or food\u2014to pivot away from sheer quantity and refocus their energy on storytelling and quality craftsmanship. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a few things really well, and that\u2019s enough,\u201d Salad says, comparing his philosophy to the enduring simplicity of In-N-Out Burger. <\/p>\n
Cole Poska shares a remarkably similar philosophy regarding creative output in an oversaturated market. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d rather make one thing people talk about for a year than 20 things people forget about tomorrow,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first person to make a candle look like a stick of butter is a genius. The hundredth person is just making a candle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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