Maybe it was inevitable that the country that made manga world-famous would fall for a bag that looks like it was peeled out of the pages of a comic book. JumpFromPaper's whimsical bags (above), with their eye-fooling primary color blocks and heavy outlines, jumped up the ranks of trending topics on Twitter in Japan last week under the keyword "2-D bag." The burst of attention coincided with TV personality Terry Itoh introducing the line on the mid-day variety show "Sukkiri!!" The bags' designers are based in Taiwan, and though there are many retail outlets carrying the bags there, in Japan they are only available online for now.
Mihara Hideaki's bags have a slightly more serious lineage. The designer's bio says he studied leathercraft in Florence, but it's not his leather work that's getting second glances for some of his latest bags. The (variously spelled) Trompe L'oeil bags have belts and buckles, leather tassels and decorative chains printed onto canvas bodies. The great big buckles may not be fooling anyone, but the thinner faux straps look convincing, and the silk scarves printed on the sides of some look like they could flutter right off.
Acrylic designer Masako Ban takes that feeling of slightly retro whimsy and goes in the opposite direction. While JumpFomPaper makes 3-D bags that look flat, Ban uses holographic lenticular material on some of her messenger bags and handbags that gives their flat surfaces a disorientingly three-dimensional and rather futuristic look.