The above photo is a result of a project that was months in the making: It reportedly took photographer Tyler Shields seven months and $100,000 to get his hands on the pictured Birkin, just so he could feed it to an alligator. In contrast, it took only four days to acquire said alligator.
According to HuffPo, the Hermes bag has been thoroughly ravaged by gator bites, making this the second Birkin Shields publically destroyed (in 2012, he set one on fire — though it’s been suggested that Shields’ first stunt Birkin was a fake).
22-year-old model Ana Mulvoy-Ten posed alongside the gator, apparently putting herself at some risk: “At one point during the shoot when Ana and the gator were both biting the bag it closed one of its eyes as if it was going to attack her, but did not,” Shields told The Daily Mail. “It was one of the most insane moments I have ever photographed.”
What a classy project! Pay a fortune for the skin of some poor animal living in misery at a croc farm, put a young woman’s life in danger — all for the sake of a clever photo and some free PR.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes video from set:
The photos are part of Shields’ latest art series, Indulgence. You can see the rest of the photos on his website.
