BRENDA, 2008
ROCCO, 2009
Rocco bag, Alexander Wang, New York City, January 2013.
Adam Katz Sinding/Trunk Archive
Alexander Wang has been a master of subversion since he launched his line in 2004 with six oversized tomboy sweaters, including one with a colossal intarsia of a model smiling and smoking. Just shy of twenty-one when he landed on the fashion industry’s radar, the kid from San Francisco, with his long, tousled hair and giddy smile, would go on to spark an entire fashion cycle in which downtown cool and street-smart savvy reigned supreme. He gave us deliberately wilted tees, sweat stains reinterpreted as lace patterns, and the model-off-duty look, like a disheveled Kate Moss just out of bed. His accessories similarly strike just the right balance of edge and irreverence. In 2008, Wang modeled his first handbag after one of his old toiletry bags. It eventually evolved into the popular Brenda style, named for good-girl-gone-bad Brenda Walsh on the television show 90210. Wang is eternally 1990s, with a penchant for pulling inspiration from where you least expect it, including bags modeled after Miami Vice and Golden Girls characters.
In 2009, he sent out the Rocco, a studded, slouchy leather duffel inspired by gym bags. Instead of using studs as a decorative factor, he placed them in a bag’s oft-overlooked zone: the bottom. The designer once again upturned the expected, and the Rocco, with its brazenly studded underbelly, became the bag that every girl—uptown, downtown, East Coast, West Coast—had to have.
With a little help from fan Mary-Kate Olsen, the handbag managed to become an even greater cult classic than the Brenda. She was the first to be spotted carrying the Rocco and, eternally nestled in the crook of her arm with the bright gold studs on full view for the paparazzi to snap, the bag became a sensation before it even hit the stores. Since then, Wang has spun off a smaller version named, appropriately enough, Rockie.
“What’s beautiful and interesting to me is a scuffed shoe, a girl with her hair a little messed up.”
—ALEXANDER WANG, W, July 2008
Rocco bag (left), Alexander Wang, Paris, 2014.
The Urban Spotter/Blaublut-Edition.com