Who Needs a Boyfriend When you can have Balenciaga?

Written By Jessica Maguire

Creative Director: Jessica Maguire 
Photographers: Ben Capp, Susannah Kimsal
Models: Jessica Maguire, Robbie Roman,
CJ Ryan

Vogue asked if having a boyfriend is embarrassing now. I’m not sure it’s embarrassing, exactly. Just… inconveniently human.

Boyfriends and designer bags both promise a certain kind of proof. One says you were chosen. The other says you chose well. Both can make you feel more complete, more valuable, more worth looking at, even if neither should be responsible for your entire sense of self.

1. boyfriend-fashion-editorial-stone-steps.jpg; A couple poses on stone steps in a muted fashion editorial image about romance and self-worth
2. couple-walking-fashion-editorial.jpg; A couple walks down a quiet city street in a cool-toned fashion editorial image.

So if the boyfriend is complicated, inconsistent, and impossible to return, the bag starts to look tempting. It is beautiful.
It is reliable. It has structure. It holds things. In some ways, it is already overqualified.

; A couple sits on a picnic blanket in a city park with an orange Balenciaga bag used as a surreal romantic symbol.
A woman sits at a dinner table with a figure wearing an orange Balenciaga bag over his head.
A figure with an orange Balenciaga bag over his head kneels with a flower in a staged romantic gesture.
A woman sits beside a figure wearing an orange Balenciaga bag over his head on outdoor steps at night.

But it was never really about choosing fashion over love. That would be ridiculous.

It was about the comfort of proof. Something to hold. Something to show. Something that takes the pressure of defining your worth off your hands.

The bag was beautiful. Reliable. Easier to carry.

It was also just a bag.

A woman poses alone with an orange Balenciaga bag in a fashion editorial image about self-worth and consumption.