Professional glass artist Madeline Rile Smith (MadHotGlass) on the glass handbag trend: “It is definitely a statement piece, and it’s not something you just swing over your shoulder.”
How Does Blown Glass Work?
According to Rile Smith, this craft begins with molten glass from a furnace that’s kept at an average of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The artist gathers the material with a stainless steel pipe, and later, blows into it to shape it into the desired structure. Some blown glass structures, like the Coperni x Heven bag, are too thick for artists to blow using only their mouths, so they opt for an air hose instead. “It's not often that we really use it,” says Rile Smith.
She adds that, while we may see some innovation in the designs created from blown glass, the craft itself has not changed much in the past centuries. “A lot of it is that we had a way of doing it and there's not really a need to change it,” she says. “So, of course, people are innovating with glass all the time and making things like odd objects, sculptures, bags.
Other artists are also making glass handbags for cheaper prices — or at least items that could be used as glass handbags. Homeware brand Sage & Sill sells