The Wirkin: a challenge to classist luxury

In recent months, Walmart has introduced "Wirkin" bags on its e-commerce platform. These bags are designed as an artistic tribute to the iconic Birkin bag by Hermès, but they are offered at a significantly lower price. Professor Luca M. Visconti, from the Faculty of Communication, Culture, and Society at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), commented on this intriguing marketing decision in an article on Corriere del Ticino.

Purchasing a Birkin bag involves more than just a significant financial investment; it also requires navigating a complex process. Prospective buyers must register on a waiting list and make preliminary purchases to demonstrate that they are worthy customers deserving of the iconic bag. In response to a luxury market that often creates barriers, the 'Wirkin' bags have emerged as a protest against classism and unreasonable exclusivity. They convey the message that luxury should be accessible to everyone—or at least to a larger audience, as stated on their dedicated website. Although relatively similar, the two bags, therefore, send very different messages. "Both bags are iconic in their own respective ways," explained Professor Luca M. Visconti, "The Birkin bag is an iconic symbol rooted in cultural references from the past, starting with Jane Birkin and continuing through other influential figures who later chose it, even pursued it. It represents not only purchasing power but also taste, elegance, and a sense of belonging. The Wirkin, on the other hand, is a symbol that speaks of contemporaneity. Wearing a Wirkin is an act of rebellion, a critique of the world of high-end luxury and the indiscriminate price increases that have defined it in recent years".

What Walmart is doing is an effective two-step marketing strategy. The first consists of offering an iconic but exclusive product on a large scale: "By playing Robin Hood, Walmart has taken an exclusive product, an object of desire for many but available to few, and made it accessible to a wider audience, showing that the chain can offer products with social expendability at great prices," commented the USI professor.

The second phase may appear paradoxical: starting 16 January, following the rapid success of TikTok, the Wirkins were removed from Walmart's e-commerce platform. Instead, authentic Birkins, sold in partnership with Rebag—a platform specialising in second-hand luxury products, or 'pre-loved' items as it is more stylishly referred to—became available. "Walmart has shown that it can play a leading ideological, political and economic role: it has managed to create a statutory anti-luxury launch, only to do exactly the opposite," observed Professor Visconti, who concluded by reflecting on how this case has shed light on the fact that currently, luxury is "less and less self-referenced, with increasingly blurred boundaries in which new, less traditional players manage to make room for themselves in a society that is increasingly polarised".

The complete interview with Professor Luca M. Visconti, edited by Arianna Girella for Corriere del Ticino, is available at the following link.