Would You Wear a $1,550 Fanny Pack the Size of a Child's Knapsack? 

Summer is almost officially here. As you peruse various retail outlets for your ideal summer look, I beg you to consider this outsized fanny pack that is basically a child’s backpack—a thrilling look for a fashion kangaroo or the woman on the go.

Courtesy of Prada, this $1,550 New Vela nylon belt bag is a solution to a problem that didn’t previously exist. Perhaps it is a take on the excesses of late capitalism—the fanny pack, a staple of streetwear fashion mavens everywhere, blown up to ridiculous proportions and priced for shock rather than practicality. Perhaps Miuccia Prada stumbled upon an image of a horse with its snout in a feed bag and thought, “Yes, of course, sure. A feed bag for horses….but for humans.”

The bag is too big. It will fall off your body. Strap this around your waist and put anything other than one small tube of hand cream and a large, perfectly round blood orange, and watch it slide right off your hips onto the ground. A useless bag! A nylon flop. A pointless fashion frippery. Or, per Prada’s website, it’s a “modern attitude.”

What’s in the bag, girl? Is it a bunch of grapes, a biology textbook, a wallet, your portable cell phone charger, and a leg of lamb? Do you need a light cardigan, and all seven volumes of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time on your person at every moment? Do you need the bag to fit all the things, so that your hands might be free for throwing pots, braiding your hair, or dancing as if no one’s watching?