【2008 Archives】

UPDATE: Sept. 23008 Archives 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.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

SEE ALSO: Lazy cat's mode of transportation is a Roomba

Isn't she a beaut?

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

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.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

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.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

And whatever this is, for $7,500.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Why let the cat out of the bag when you can just make it into one?

• Science
• Tech
• Life
• Games
• Digital Culture
• Shopping
• Entertainment
• Social Good

• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $140 on roborock Q7 Max Robot Vacuum
• These Quizzes Are Hard, and Other News by Sadie Stein
• Everything They Cook Takes Five Hours: An Interview with Director Alexa Karolinski by Tim Small
• Good Little Girls, and Other News by Sadie Stein
• President Trump says semiconductor tariffs are next
• Good Little Girls, and Other News by Sadie Stein
• Honors Galore, and Other News by Sadie Stein
• Filling the Silence: An Interview with Marie Chaix by Sarah Gerard
• 10 Tech Predictions for 2017
• Animal Farm Timeline by John Reed

• Tragic, Indeed by Sadie Stein
• What We’re Loving: Racetrack Murals, Lovers, A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Sadie Stein
• Meet Sugar Daddy Ken, Midge, and 'Barbie's other discontinued dolls
• 'Quordle' today: See each 'Quordle' answer and hints for July 23
• And the Pantone Color of the Year Is… by Sadie Stein
• What happened to H.E.L.P.eR.? 'Venture Bros,' creators weigh in
• LA Story by Nathan Deuel
• The Carolers by Titi Nguyen
• My First Book(s) by David L. Ulin
• Map of the World by Sadie Stein

• Best robot vacuum deal: Eufy Omni C20 robot vacuum and mop $300 off at Amazon
• 'Quordle' today: See each 'Quordle' answer and hints for June 21
• Car Trouble, Part 2 by Pamela Petro
• In the Margins by Sadie Stein
• What cracked the Milky Way's giant cosmic bone? Scientists think they know.
• The Private Lives of Web Journalists by Jason Novak
• Paula Fox, Work in Progress by The Paris Review
• Medieval Pawprints, and Other News by Sadie Stein
• The 10 Most Anticipated PC Games of 2017
• New Emotion: On Kirill Medvedev by Lucy McKeon

• Amazon Prime Grubhub deal: Save $10 off orders of $20 or more
• 20 tweets that perfectly sum up 2020
• Rep. Louie Gohmert appears to lose tooth mid
• Paula Fox and the Gift of Understanding by Elisabeth Donnelly
• NYT Strands hints, answers for April 26
• A Prize for Isol by Sadie Stein
• No, the missing Titanic sub did not rely on Starlink for communication
• WhatsApp now lets you silence unknown callers
• Philips now allows customers to 3D print replacement parts
• Generative AI risks: EU consumer group calls for 'urgent investigation'