Being a full-time accessories blogger means that, of all people, I’m usually pretty “up” on the trends. Not because I’m extra super cool (even though I am, trust), but merely because it’s a requirement of my continued employment, and like all of us, I’d very much like to continue to be employed. With that in mind, even I couldn’t have predicted that luxury leather coozies (FINE. They’re cup holders. But “coozie” is a much better word, and not all that wrong.) would become a thing that we all now have available to us.
I first covered the Hermes Coozie a couple of weeks ago, and now that the Internet at large has begun to discover its existence, people are pulling random leather cup holders out of all kinds of weird corners of the accessories business. As a result, we have the Jimmy Choo Rika Cup Holder in embossed croc to present to you today. Watch out, though – it’s only $25 less than the Hermes version. This is why they hate us, ladies. But wait, what? There’s now a CROCODILE version of the Hermes cup holder?
Image via Styleite.com
Yes, this is a thing. The crocodile version costs $250 to the regular leather’s $190, but based on the prices for other Hermes small leather goods in exotic leathers, that seems lower than I would have expected. Like the leather version, the crocodile cup holder is part of the Petite h collection, which is Hermes’ effort to use scraps of leather, silk and other materials that are used in its regular products that might have otherwise been thrown away.
Most luxury houses are incredibly wasteful, particularly those like Hermes who have the most meticulous of standards for what might constitue a flaw in a piece of material, rendering it useless for its normal products. The effort to use the waste toward something playful that consumers might enjoy is a good one, and Hermes has said that these products will only be manufactured when extra material is available. It’s like extremely high-end recycling, which is likely why the prices (relative to other Hermes price points) are low. For a brand with rabid collectors, these kinds of small items make a certain amount of sense; they cut down on waste and satisfy a group of customers that is willing to shell out money for anything with an H on it. Brilliant.
Jimmy Choo, on the other hand, would simply like to sell you another nearly useless leather doodad, and for nearly the same price as Hermes. If you somehow find yourself needing to choose between the two (and I’m not really sure how someone gets to a point in life where that’s a decision that needs making), I think that the correct choice is obvious. Buy the Jimmy Choo version for $165 via JimmyChoo.com, or contact your local Hermes store for more information on how to obtain Petite h products, if any are left. (One never knows these things with Hermes.)
