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It almost seems too coincidental that six months ago, a painter legally named Boyarde would discover Goyard handbags as her new favorite canvas.
The 32-year-old British artist is now hand painting her signature pop-art infused aesthetic onto a variety of expensive handbags.
She customizes Goyard, as well as Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Balenciaga bags with feminist-tinged work for private clients who pay up to $2,000 to have their already-pricey goods upgraded by Boyarde’s lofty hand.
Boyarde for Goyard: British painter Boyarde Messenger is now affixing her personal aesthetic onto the sides of very expensive handbags, like this version by Goyard
Based in London, Boyarde (full name: Boyarde Messenger) is best known in the British art scene for body painting models’ pitch-perfect rear-ends for limited-run photographs.
Six months ago, the artist who claims to ‘paint on everything except paper,’ decided to venture into accessories, a move spurred by her recent collaboration with designer friend Charlotte Dellal, who commissioned Boyarde to paint 100 shoes by her label, Charlotte Olympia. The range was exclusively retailed at Neiman Marcus, and earned Boyarde mentions in American fashion tomes like Vogue and ELLE.
She channeled that newly-minted confidence confidence and set out to develop methods for painting luxury bags. ‘It took me quite a while to learn,’ she told MailOnline of the process. ‘Before I started, I experimented on vintage bags and learned to understand how leathers are all different. They breathe differently; you really have to understand the canvas you are working on.’
The resulting body of work that its inspiration to pop culture. A green Goyard tote bears an oversized bust of Miss Piggy, with an exclamation bubble reading ‘I’m sexy and I know it…!’ Cartoon heroines occupy the sides of Hermès Birkin bags with call-outs reading ‘He has no idea…!’ and ‘You think you know me…?’
The Birkin process: Boyarde first sands, then primes, and then applies thin layers of paint to Hermes bags to achieve the final look
Finished product: Boyarde's finished bags recall the pop art work of Roy Lichtenstein
At times, Boyarde’s work looks like a more saturated version of Roy Lichtenstein’s primary-colored comic strips. While Lichtenstein isn’t her exact intention, the illustrations’ over-the-topness is in fact, quite deliberate. ‘It’s about the pop idiom and erring on the nice side of kitsch,’ she said.
‘I’m not the deepest artist,’ Boyarde said of her work’s aesthetic. ‘It’s definitely visual and aesthetic, I just want to have fun.’
The woman herself: Boyarde Messenger (above) has worked as a professional artist since 2007 and only started painting handbags 6 months ago
Customizing services are nothing new for fans of luxury bag brands. Goyard’s shopping totes, (favored by logo-fiend Francophiles and New England WASPS) are famous for their personalized initials, numbers, and brightly-colored stripes that the label will paint onto bags for $155 per add-on. Louis Vuitton began offering a similar service called Mon Monogram in 2010.
But Boyarde is looking to break away from the cookie-cutter Goyard stripe, as are her patrons. ‘It’s about taking it to the next level,’ she said of her outlook on bag customization.
Clients that commission her work will, ‘officially have a fashion loves art bag because they it is an amalgamation of fashion and art together,’ she said.
Charlotte Dellal, as well as several princesses in Jordan, have already placed orders.
But Boyarde’s growing technical experience has not helped make the process any less stressful. ‘I’m very confident with what I’m doing, but the process of painting on such an expensive bag is petrifying,’ she admitted.
The most nerve-wracking of all her commissions are Hermès leather bags.
Boyarde has developed specific painting processes for each type of bag material. They all begin by tracing the shape of her custom illustration onto the bags.
To Rio: A Goyard design for her friend Charlotte Dellal was inspired by scenes in Rio, and was created to commemorate the birth of Dellal's new child by the same name
Hermès’s fine leather requires an additional step. In order to help the paint and varnishes stick, Boyarde sands the bags' surfaces with sandpaper.
‘The first Birkin I did, I was absolutely terrified'
‘The first Birkin I did, I was absolutely terrified,’ she said.
She then uses Angelus paint, a medium specially developed for leather and vinyl applications, in very thin, incremental layers over the course of one week, and then tops off the customized look with a durable varnish.
Like many modern designers, Boyarde sees Instagram as a tool for growing her business. Her account’s feed acts as a visual resume for her many past art installations, as well as her bags’ development.
Never full: Boyarde also applies her work onto Louis Vuitton vinyl canvas pieces, like this Yayoi Kusama-designed Never Full bag
At press time, she clocked in at 1,556 followers. Her account has already earned her potential business partners in Asia and has helped her gather a roster of private clients hailing from the U.S., Kuwait, Singapore, and China.
But Boyarde is looking to break out from the custom-commission mold. She says that one day she ‘would love to do a collaboration with a fashion brand,’ to follow up her inaugural fashion experience with Charlotte Olympia.
‘I’m Boyarde painting on a Goyard,’ she said of her new occupational niche. ‘There are endless possibilities for what I can paint.’
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