Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Nicole Gradeless, Cat Benson, Retailer
You might spot one at the beach, standing sturdy and upright among its floppy canvas or terry-cloth counterparts. It’s bound to be on the Little League sidelines, peeking out from under the arm of a mom or three. Was that a mini one at brunch?
It is the Bogg bag. And it is everywhere — or about to be.
For the uninitiated: picture a Crocs shoe fashioned into a tote bag, a giant rubbery rectangle covered in holes where you can snap on pouches, holsters, decals, pins, and other accoutrements. They come in every color of the rainbow, from “Houston, we have a purple” to “under the sea(foam)” to leopard print — and you can even get a holder that perfectly fits a Stanley tumbler.
The largest size, which costs around $90, is big enough to schlep around a decent portion of what’s in your fridge, pantry, and bathroom cabinet. Its sensible straps and snap-in pouches say, I’ve got everything we need for some organized fun. As one mom recently put it on Instagram, “one day you’re young and fun and the next you’ve packed your entire house in a bag that looks like a croc for 40 minutes of stressful pool time with your kids.” The company is on track to sell $100 million worth this year.
In a TikTok viewed more than 19 million times since she posted it on May 30, Cat Benson, a 36-year-old mother of four in Lexington, Kentucky, empties her large white Bogg bag, adorned with a decal that says “mom life,” and cleans it with a Lysol wipe. She then systematically restocks it for her son’s baseball double-header with a small cooler pouch containing water bottles, sports drinks, grapes, and veggies; other snacks like Ritz crackers and beef jerky; a pouch with lotion, sunscreen, and Shout wipes; instant cold packs; toilet-seat covers; hand sanitizer; airpods; cash; a cylindrical tissue box; Advil; a battery-powered fan; Bloom Nutrition powdered greens; and a bottle that serves as a base for a spinning, misting shade umbrella.
“My son had a football game a while back, and he hurt his arm, but I didn’t have an ice pack for him,” Benson told me. So she searched online for cold packs to add to her Bogg bag for the sidelines. “I know there’s got to be something that I can keep in here for if they do get hurt,” she remembered thinking. Now, she’s prepared for injuries, too.
When Brittany Jarrett, a 40-year-old hair stylist and self-proclaimed dance mom in Madera, California, posted a TikTok showing off how she packed her Bogg bag ahead of her daughter’s weekend-long dance contest back in March, it racked up 460,000 views and 250 sales via her affiliate link. In the video, Jarrett pulls out two bottles of sparkling brut and says, “Let me scoot back so I can show you what I’m taking out of this Mary Poppins bag.” She whisks out tights, a Stanley tumbler, a makeup bag, a jacket, and other accessories.
Bogg is the brainchild of Kim Vaccarella, 54, a mother of two who was inspired by her experience taking her young family to the Jersey Shore back in the late aughts. She made the first 300 bags in 2010, and sold them out of local shops. Today, she said, “we’re on the cusp of a huge explosion” in terms of Bogg’s popularity.
She said her products took off first in the Southeast, where — given the year-round potential for outdoor activities — they have sold well for years. But recently, Vaccarella said, something has shifted. She’s even seen uptake in places like New York City’s suburbs.
Of course, the dupes weren’t far behind. Aldi and Simple Modern, a drinkware and home goods brand found at stores like Target and Walmart, have both released versions of the same bag, for $23 and $60, respectively.
Vaccarella said the company only recently started spending money on advertising in order to reclaim some online real estate from the knockoffs. They also plan to soon roll out their own versions of accessories, like dividers that section off the bag, which customers had to previously find elsewhere.
It was these organizational possibilities that appealed to Nicole Gradeless, a consultant who lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband and three children. Gradeless, who calls herself a “bag addict,” told me that when she was younger, she was drawn to designer purses from Kate Spade or Prada.
Lately, though, she’s understandably more interested in function. “My identity changed when I had children,” Gradeless told me. Now she often reaches for one of her “family of Bogg bags” — a large navy tote adorned with a “mom life” badge, a smaller fuschia one, or a tiny light pink one. Because they are cute and personalizable, she said, Bogg bags allow moms to “maintain part of our identity.” Still, she said, “Once I became a parent, I started thinking, ‘How can I be the most prepared for every scenario?’”
Bogg was part of the answer. “I’m like, ‘Is it a new brand of helicopter parent?’”
Related
The 40-Ounce BullyThe Cleanfluencers Who Declutter, Haul, Restock, Repeat
Lindsay Gellman , 2024-06-21 16:00:39
Source link
