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Of the many youthful franchises to align with the streetwear set, Pokémon may be the most enduring. Similarly, of all the streetwear types to partner with franchises, Hiroshi Fujiwara and his fragment design are easily the most omnipresent.
As part of fragment’s ongoing Pokémon collaboration series — which includes everything from plushes to Pokémon GO merch, the duo have brought luxury glassware label Baccarat on board for perhaps the most opulent Pokémon collectible ever.
Put your rare Pokémon cards away! fragment and Baccarat’s nearly one-foot-tall faceless glass Pikachu will run collectors a whopping ¥3 million, or just over $27k, if they pick it up from Baccarat’s website or select flagship stores.
Only 25 pieces of this polygonal beast will ever be made, so it’s actually rarer than those holographic Charizards that have hit the auction block in recent years. It’s also less nostalgic and less pocketable, though, so that tampers the general appeal.
You can save a couple G’s and still catch ’em all: just pick up fragment and Baccarat’s more detailed (and smaller) Pikachu or Pokémon Ball for ¥55k and ¥49.5k, respectively (about $485 and $435).
As Pokémon has long since courted the kids who grew up on its games with trading cards and Daniel Arsham collabs, Baccarat has only begun dabbling in the youth culture space.
In the past couple years, the luxury house has produced BE@RBRICKs (another fragment edition) and a Virgil Abloh-designed collection but never really strayed from its core luxury clientele.
The big glass Pikachu kinda reminds me of the Balenciaga sneaker box “art”, in that its translucent and modern enough to blend into any luxurious living space.
But it’s in a weird middle ground where the product is both prohibitively expensive and probably too childish for most big spenders. I mean, it is a giant glass Pikachu, after all.
Still, I suppose the translucent electric rat is at least marginally classier than a spread of Supreme accessories.
