Do you have $850 burning a hole in your pocket that you’d like to spend on some bedazzled platform Crocs that look like a three-year-old’s art project? Perhaps you’d prefer to shell out thousands for the honor of sticking your arms through a plastic dry cleaning bag and calling it a dress. Yes, high fashion really is its own little world, and the desire to make a statement nearly always eclipses the need for practicality. But there are strange and unusual runway moments, and then there are ready-to-wear abominations that somehow sell out online within seconds.

Sold-Out Balenciaga Platform Crocs

Crocs are ugly, but for some people, they serve a utilitarian purpose – for walking the dog, gardening or staying comfortable while working long hours at a retail position. That’s all fine. What’s not fine is taking this intrinsically offensive rubber design, extending the platform, bejeweling the tops so they look like a kindergartener’s craft project, and then selling them for $850. But of course, fashion house Balenciaga is getting the last laugh in this situation, because this abomination sold out within minutes when they were made available for pre-order.

The Helmut Lang Freezer Bag

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUbjG2F0eG/?taken-by=helmutlang

Sure, the insulated silver bags often used to keep frozen goods cold are shiny. So are a lot of other things. But Helmut Lang saw something special in the woven metallic material, and used it as inspiration for a $320 handbag that looks like it cost less than a dollar. They even call it ‘Freezer Bag,’ and posted an Instagram photo of the bag placed… inside a freezer.

Balenciaga’s Car Mat Skirt

Balenciaga is at it again with a skirt that looks exactly like a rubber car mat. It’s actually made of leather, but can you even tell? By all appearances, it’s a piece of cheap, possibly toxic material molded in the same way car mats often are, for $2916. You could literally staple an actual car mat around your waist and achieve the same look. It’s called Car Design Skirt, and it’s sold out.

Moschino Dry Cleaning Cape Dress

Très chic, eh? This $730 dress by Moschino could have gone for a more subtle and slightly futuristic look just by leaving off the text and tightening up the silhouette a bit, but clearly they want it to look like a dry cleaning bag. Even Cosmopolitan made fun of it. The dress, unsurprisingly, is the brainchild of fashion designer Jeremy Scott, who certainly doesn’t shy away from the gauche in his work.

Thibaut ‘Thong Jeans’

The most basic job of a pair of pants is to cover and protect the lower halves of our bodies, but utilitarianism usually goes out the window when it comes to high fashion, so perhaps it’s no surprise that somebody cut the most important parts out of a pair of jeans, left a thong-like strip in the back, and called them pants. “Thong jeans now exist so let’s officially get the apocalypse rolling,’ reads Harpers Bazaar’s piece on the Thibaut creation, which debuted at Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo in 2017 and will reportedly become available on the market this year. If you’re just too excited to wait, you can get a copycat pair from fast fashion retailer Yandy – as a Halloween costume.

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No worries about anyone invading your personal space when you’re wearing this intricate 3D-printed dress, which extends animatronic spider-inspired arms when it senses another person’s presence nearby. ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht responds with defensive gestures if anyone approaches too quickly, or come-hither motions to friendlier, slower-moving people.

Equipped with proximity and respiration monitors and an Intel Edison processor, the dress acts as a shield between the wearer and the outside world, interpreting the intentions of people who come near. The 3D-printed white components have a skeletal appearance, while LED lights add a bit more sci-fi appeal.

As seen in the video, the movements of the spider arms are creepily realistic. The design is an improvement upon Wipprecht’s ‘Spider Dress 1.0,’ which had a more mechanical appearance with arrow-like legs. The artist sees fashion as lacking in ‘microcontrollers,’ and seeks to combine fashion design with engineering, science and interaction.

The mechanisms that create the movement in Wipprecht’s wearable tech designs are left visible on the outside so viewers can “witness the designs creating their own unique forms of interaction, movement and meaning.”

Wallets and purses are functional and practical carriers for cash, cards and the miscellaneous necessities of daily life – but who says they can’t be more? Forget that boring scrap of leather and slide an adapted Atari game cartridge, space-age metal contraption or even a dead stuffed cane toad into your pocket instead. These 14 wonderfully weird, cool and geeky designs will get you looks of envy from some people an looks of utter horror from others.

Clever Metal Wallet Offers Up the Right Card

(image via: fractal spin)

Just like the dimwits in those commercials that can’t seem to handle performing the simplest of tasks, you whip out your wallet to pay for a purchase. But wait – you can’t seem to find the right card, fruitlessly flipping through plastic and cash and quickly losing your cool. You could organize your wallet a little better, or you could make the whole process mind-numbingly simple with this clever (but bulky) contraption: a metal wallet with individual slots for each card. You just press the button for the card you want, and it slides forward. Magic pasta strainer not included.

Creepy Cane Toad Purse

(image via: toadshop)

Why settle for buttery, hand-dyed Italian calfskin leather when you could carry around a cane toad? This ultra-fashionable accessory is made from the corpse of a real cane toad, warts and all. Choose the streamlined legless look to keep up with the latest trends, or keep the legs and those gnarly toenails intact for added visual interest.

Bacon Wallet

(images via: mcphee.com)

For the bacon lover who has everything – including neckties and dresses made from real fried pork flesh – nothing but a bacon wallet will do. Well, ask (or not) and you shall receive. The Bacon Wallet may look like the real thing, but alas, it’s sadly free of bacon scent. At least it won’t putrefy in your pocket.

Vogue-Worthy Mexican Wrestler Purse

(image via: trendhunter)

It’s finally socially acceptable for anemic fashion icons with blunt bobs to proclaim their secret passion for… Mexican wrestling. Or at least, that’s what this luxury handbag, featured in the pages of Vogue Nippon, seems to say. Don’t keep it inside, wear it proud.

Wood Wallet

(image via: itay laniado)

Can wallets get any simpler than this? Forget gimmicks and unnecessary gadgetry, this wood wallet by Itay Laniado design group is just a single piece of maple, oak or beech that uses your credit card to keep cash secured in a small chamber.

Reef Stash: Store Stuff Underfoot

(image via: brittanydiamond)

Sexy? No. Practical? You bet – and isn’t that what wallets are supposed to be all about? The Reef ‘Stash’ flip-flop has a super-handy built-in compartment to store small items like keys, cash and cards while you’re at the beach.

Customizable LEGO Wallet

(image via: gear fuse)

If you just can’t resist those little plastic bricks, this customizable LEGO wallet might be right up your alley. Sure, you’d probably have to use the pouch itself to carry around the LEGOs, leaving little room for money and essentially making this more of a portable toy set – but it’s still fun.

DIY Nintendo Controller Wallet

(image via: ubergizmo)

Only the most hardcore Nintendo geek would actually carry one of these homemade NES controller wallets around – especially because they don’t exactly fit into your pocket. Still, it’s a covetable DIY project for crafty gamers who just can’t get enough NES.

NES Controller Purse

(image via: perezstart)

Why stop at a mere DIY controller wallet when you could have an NES controller purse to put it in? For the ladies who love to fly that geek flag proudly, this vinyl clutch is quite a deal for $20 at inhope.etsy.com.

Actual Functioning NES Purse

(image via: geeky gadgets)

Oh yes, it gets even better. Not only can you proclaim your geekdom with a fully functional NES system incongruously mounted onto a wooden purse, you can keep yourself endlessly entertained no matter where you go and practically beg video game-deprived criminals to swipe your bag and run for the pixelated hills.

Head Hand Bag

(image via: head hand bag)

How do you say “I’m creepy,” but do it in a subtle and fashionable way? A decapitated human head in a classy linen drawstring bag is a great starting point. Designer Yael Mer was inspired to create this highly unusual molded purse by the biblical story of Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes. As one commenter on Purse Blog put it, “What’s next, an umbrella shaped like an amputated leg?”

Computer Keyboard Purse

(image via: boingboing)

If you’d rather be analyzing binary code, perhaps this is just the accessory you’ve been searching for. Sure, there are far too few female computer engineers in the world who would drool over a purse like this, but considering that Barbie is the newest member of their ranks, the profession – and geeky girly stuff like this purse – might just get a lot more popular.

ATARI Wallet

(image via: etsy)

Retro game lovers may cringe at the sight of a 25-year-old Atari cartridge being turned into a wallet, and there’s no telling whether the game was still functional before it became a fashion accessory, but how many of these vintage collectibles have made their way into landfills over the years? It’s a fun and functional example of creative(ly geeky) reuse.

BAGTV – Purse and Entertainment in One

(images via: bagtv)

Newspapers, iPods and portable DVD players just aren’t enough anymore. Our entertainment needs to be constantly present no matter where we go, and it must also be as conspicuous as possible. Meet the BagTV, a $300 purse with a built-in DVD player. “Use at night in bars, and clubs to show off your latest photos, or favourite videos,” say the manufacturers.  Because what everyone in a noisy bar really wants – in addition to music and/or television screens already present – is some annoying person trying to show you a video of their drooling baby on their purse.