There are responsible ways of using your celebrity, and then there’s this atrocity:

That would be the $39K alligator skin backpack manufactured by The Row, the fashion line run by former child stars Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen..

This Salon story tells you all you need to know about class divisions in America, c. 2011:

But it was the news this week that at the Paris launch of the handbag line, Ashley Olsen bragged that the backpack “was the first thing that sold off the shelf” that really took the let-them-eat-cake. Olsen added that luxury brands do well in hard times, noting that “During our last economic crisis in the U.S., the only thing that went up was Hermès,” before, in the words of Women’s Wear Daily, “returning to sip Champagne with guests including Michelle Harper and Christian Louboutin.” As a commenter on CNN observed of this news, “This is what’s wrong with America.”

Read the full story here.

As my wife noted, there’s one place this bag would have looked great — on the alligator.