Shopping bag:Tiffany

A 2004 donation to the museum was a collection of hundreds of shopping bags collected by a New York City resident. The bags represented retailers and other commercial establishments. During the 1980s, when most of these were collected, there was a surge in shopping bag production and collection, spearheaded by New York retailer Bloomingdales but widely imitated. The bags demonstrate powerful graphic design for their eras. This particular example is marked for the epitome of extravagance and high-end good taste: Tiffanys. These shopping bags and their collection demonstrates two forms of adult play--shopping and collecting.