The Moonstone Bag will be custom painted in Jack Armstrong’s Cosmic X art style that made him famous: legendary Texas boot-maker Tony Lama has named the artist as the designer of their new line of ultra-exclusive handbags. Coming soon at $7.3 Million, the bag will smash the Birkin bag record and even the Mouawad diamond handbag record: the front of the bag pictured above is a special worldwide preview granted by Mr Armstrong himself to our magazine.
Early in Jack’s art career, he became friends and collaborated with three legends of the art world – Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. One of the proudest moments in Jack Armstrong’s life was when Andy Warhol named him “The Last Wizard” of art which has now become the title of the upcoming movie about his life. He has exhibited his own creations worldwide, selling to some of the world’s richest billionaires. Armstrong has only completed one hundred global paintings and art objects owned by ultra-wealthy collectors.
Armstrong joined with Tony Lama not only because he created the world’s most expensive boots with them in 2018 – the sensational cowboy boots happen to be in fact one of Armstrong’s most precious creations – but also because he feels that this American brand, founded in Texas in 1911, can re-stake their claim as the ultra-luxury iconic brand for 2024. If Tony Lama has been creating boots for Presidents, Princes and Kings for more than a century, Armstrong says: “It’s a natural fit to create the highest quality handbag in the world with them, and let the market decide which brand wins”.
There will be only one hundred serigraph prints on exotic bags for the Fall Winter 2023 collection, created by Armstrong and the designer Tony Lama working closely together, as they join the UHNW luxury bag market currently dominated by Hermès, Louis Vuitton and other fashion houses. A serigraph print is an original piece of artwork that applies ink through a silkscreen onto a material: they will be priced between $100,000 to $200,000 each, depending on the chosen material.
There will be a huge crystal moonstone colour lavender on the front of the exquisite hand-designed and hand-sewn leather masterpiece with a golden X shaped like a Tony Lama cowboy boot: they can be specially engraved and numbered for each new owner, which takes the bespoke idea for handbags back to Tony Lama’s founding principal of making the finest leather products in the world.
A silver moonstone ring on the top colour cream lavender with tans and circular universal lines in the stone: this custom ring can be detached and worn or left attached to the bag. Il will also have a TL insignia for Tony Lama added on the left front, while the back of the bag will have a golden X and O painted, with a small golden signature of the first name of Jack Armstrong.
The ultimate gift. The first Tony Lama Moonstone Bag will also have the buyer’s first name attached to it. If the planned one hundred (numbered) bags are created and sold at $7.3M Dollars each in 2024, Tony Lama & Jack Armstrong will realize $730M in bag sales next year. With about 3,500 Billionaires in the world, each desiring rare bespoke objects, Armstrong says his bags can set the new standard, becoming a UHNW must-have.
Article edited by Laura Petracco
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