Artist auctions dead cat handbag after lowering starting price to $1
UPDATE: Sept. 23, 2016, 12:58 p.m. AEST The artist has sold her creation in an online auction for NZ$545 ($400) after lowering the starting price from a thousand dollars to just one dollar.
"People said I'm profiting off a cat so I reduced the price to a dollar to tell them to 'stuff it,'" the cat handbag creator told the BBC, after the auction page received a bunch of blacklash -- from those with sincere criticisms and those who just wanted to make cat puns.
Seven years ago, New Zealand artist Claire Hobbs found a dead cat on a nearby road. After storing the cat in the freezer and searching through missing pets ads for three months, Hobbs decided she could put the cat's body to good use -- and converted the dead kitty into a beautiful handbag. And now, she has now decided to sell it.
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Isn't she a beaut?
Hobbs has been a taxidermist for the past 15 years. She created the cat bag as part of an exhibition seven years ago, and has since decided to sell it on TradeMe, an online marketplace.
The cat bag currently retails for $1,027 US dollars.
Hobbs explained that she converted the cat into a handbag because "he had a particularly nice face, and the rest of him was squashed."
The bag has attracted an understandable degree of controversy, with critics claiming that Hobbs's product was "disrespectful" to dead animals and potentially exploitative.
Hobbs, who owns two dogs, says she doesn't kill animals for her work, and instead uses roadkill, or animals shot by her friend on his nearby farm.
But there's more to Hobbs that cat handbags. Her TradeMe shop includes such verifiable gems as: Taxidermy cat-birds, part-bird, part-cat hybrids, available for the low, low cost of $3,000.
And whatever this is, for $7,500.
Why let the cat out of the bag when you can just make it into one?
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
