From Roast Chicken to It-Bag: Inside Gen Z’s Joke-Accessory Boom

In the US, Walmart’s limited-edition Rotisserie Chicken Purse has quietly become one of this fall’s most viral accessories. Priced at the exact same $5.97 as the store’s actual hot chicken, the bag dropped on September 1 and sold out almost immediately, triggering restocks, waitlists and reseller listings at many times the original price. In its press release, Walmart frames the item as a playful spin on a deli classic, tying it into the broader craze for oversized novelty clutches.

Fashion and retail outlets point out that this isn’t an isolated gag but part of a longer “food purse” wave that began with products like Panera’s viral BAGuette, a baguette-shaped shoulder bag that sparked a buying frenzy in 2023. The chicken purse is optimised for the social era: one glance on TikTok or Instagram tells you the joke, the brand and roughly what it costs. For Gen Z, these memeable accessories act as conversation starters and status symbols that signal humor and cultural fluency rather than old-school luxury. The trend hints at a shift from logo-driven aspiration to “inside-joke” fashion, where virality and personality matter more than traditional notions of taste.