Anya Bags Sell Out in 29 Minutes at Columbus Circle

7
by Rebecca Carter July 18, 2007
Categories: Fashion.

This post was contributed by Ecorazzi photographer Melissa Rosenberg. Didn’t get your bag? Enter our “Save Valerie” contest and you just might win one!

“I’m Not a Plastic Bag” Line @ Whole Foods Columbus Circle. Photo credit: Melissa RosenbergI arrived at Whole Foods on Columbus Circle this morning in the pouring rain to take photos of Anya Hindmarch’s “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” buyers. I was lucky enough have pre-ordered my bag at the Theory Store’s “It’s Easy Being Green” event in early June. The bags went on sale at 8am. I arrived at about 8:27 and snapped my first photo at 8:29 just as a Whole Foods rep came outside to tell the crowd, “The last bag has just been sold. We have no more bags.” One woman told me she waited for almost an hour, never imagining they would sell out so fast. The bags came pre-packed in three’s for a total of $48.74 and buyers had their cash out ready to pay. Supposedly the Columbus Circle store had about 2,500-3,000 bags in stock.

Annie Steinberg from GoGreenExpo sent her intern Amanda to the Chelsea store at 7 am. When she arrived, people were camped out in beach chairs. Amanda was number 452 in line. Though the line started in front of the store, her spot in line was a couple blocks away.

Whole Foods sells out of Anya Hindmarch “I’m Not a Plastic Bag”. Photo credit: Melissa RosenbergOur eyewitnesses tell us that a fight broke out on line as a woman pushed her way to the front, feeling she should have priority because she works for the NYC schools. Another woman is said to have fainted.

So did Annie & Amanda get their bags? Indeed they did. And here’s the kicker: Whole Foods was putting the “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” into, yes – you guessed it, plastic bags.

People are crazy for these bags. Let’s hope that other grocers & designers like Anya follow suit.


Categories: Fashion.

About Rebecca Carter

Rebecca Carter is the Co-Founder of Ecorazzi. Rebecca was recently featured in the book Hot, Rich, and Green. She is one of 70 eco-achievers featured in Glamour magazine in April 2009, named Best of Green 2010 by Miami Magazine and Best Environmentalist by Miami New Times Best of 2008. She's raising a couple of little boys in Miami and speaks English & Spanish. Find out more at www.RebeccaCarter.net. Follow Rebecca on Twitter: @rebeccacarter

View all posts by Rebecca Carter →
  • anonymous

    Are you KIDDING? (About putting the bags into plastic bags.) Oh, my goodness. (Pause while I swallow the irony!)

  • http://www.ecorazzi.com rebecca

    I too, am shocked / amused at the irony of it all. We’ll see how this continues to unfold.

  • http://melanieelaine.blogspot.com melanie

    The bags started going on sale before 8am…they opened early (just after 7am) probably to get people the hell out of the torrential and out of their store so they could service their grocery customers. The fact that people didn’t bring their own bags to purchase the totes really aggravated me…there were so many people posing for the press & their own cameras with the “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” totes in Whole Foods Plastic bags. It was like nails on a chalk board watching people. I saw only a handful of people bring in their own bags to the store to place them in. I purchased my bags at the June 20th launch but I was amazed by how many people showed up at Columbus Circle today…the security guard I talked to said people camped out. I didn’t check any other Whole Foods locations so I’m not sure if they opened early as well.

  • L

    I camped out at the Greenwich Whole Foods location. We had about 100 people by 6 a.m. The line was increasingly rapidly by that point. Store employees handed out tickets for us to purchase the 700 bags available there. By 7:45 the tickets were gone. We had a great group there and no problems.

  • Pingback: Hippyshopper

  • marie

    all this clamour is ridiculous, green or not this is a bag and lining up in front of a store to snatch one of them is pointless- how is it educating us to be more green and want less? This is a form of excessive consumption as well. Even if it’s green, how many of us already have bags they don’t know what to do with? I’m saddened by the view of this “monkey see, monkey do” phenomenon that keeps occuring all over the world.

  • Pingback: Urban Ecoist » Blog Archive » “I’m not a plastic bag” bag

« PREVIOUS POST
NEXT POST »