Anya Hindmarch bags cause frenzy, divert the message

You may have seen luxury handbag designer Anya Hindmarch's "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" bags around and maybe thought nothing of it other than "okay, obviously you're not a plastic bag, so what?" What you might not know is that at 8am this morning, 15 Whole Foods stores around NYC began a first-come, first-serve sale of 20,000 of these $15 cotton grocery bag alternatives, limited to three per customer. A similar event for the bags in Taiwan required riot police and landed 30 people in the hospital. The Hong Kong sale was so crazy that the cops had to shut down the entire shopping mall. Because of such mayhem, the Hindmarch bag events held in Southeast Asia will resume only on the internet. The real message to not use polyethylene plastic grocery bags seems to have gotten lost in the race to score a limited edition fashion accessory with a luxury brand name attached. Will patrons covet them as trend wear and not as carry sacks for trout, zucchini, and Doritos? It'll surely be "the day" when we witness people exiting the supermarket with pocketbooks in these not-plastic-bags and their groceries in, well, plastic bags.