Lani Devine of Australian accessories label Her Royal Flyness has designed a colour-coordinated kit for jilted women, containing all the tools they need to take revenge on their ex-boyfriends in style.
The Ex-Boyfriend Revenge Kit is displayed on the Sydney-based company's online store, and comprises a teal woven leather tote bag from the Her Royal Flyness collection, accompanied by tools and weapons that could be used to break into an ex-boyfriend's property, subdue and punish them.
Designer and Her Royal Flyness owner Lani Devine insists that the project is conceptual and is intended to provoke discussion. "We don't promote any type of real life violence to anyone," she told Dezeen. "The kit will never actually be sold in any way or form and we never intended it to be. It was purely an exercise in design for us that turned out being quite visually interesting."
Most of the items contained in the bag, including a balaclava, a crowbar, rope and leather gloves, are finished in a matching shade of teal and are designed to look as stylish as fashion accessories. The set also contains a pair of resin knuckledusters and an injection kit with a single shot of truth serum.
"From a design perspective we wanted to explore the idea of how things that are usually deemed dangerous might look if they were designed with a much more elegant approach," said Devine. "Would they seem less dangerous? Or would they be even more intimidating? Would they actually go with our bag as an ensemble? How much would something like that sell for?"
Devine explained that posting the "limited edition" set on her site, with a hypothetical price of $1850, was intended to provoke discussion and promote her genuine products. Attempting to buy the kit prompts an error message explaining that the product is out of stock.
"Designing all the pieces and actually working out what would be in the revenge kit was an interesting project as a designer," she said. "The items scared me at first but now I can see how something that is used in an ugly way can be made beautiful. The outcome in our eyes is that the dangerous items look less intimidating but the person you imagine buying them becomes scarier."
Devine added that feedback from her customers has been good and the project has helped increase sales of the standard tote bag.
"We have had a really positive response to it so far, the women that like our brand/bags have really embraced the dark humour of it and also like the way the items have come together as a set," she claimed. "We haven't had anyone contact us attempting to buy a kit yet. We've sold a lot of the teal bags without all the nasty additions though."