Alexander Wang has turned a SoHo pavement into a live fashion stunt, teaming with New York dominatrix and performance artist Sabine Tautou to tape a nearly naked man to a street post outside the designer's store as he held the brand's Rocco handbag. The performance was staged to promote the return of the cult studded bag, one of Wang's defining accessories from the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Images from the stunt show Tautou wrapping the participant from head to toe in grey bondage tape while the black Rocco remains visible against his body. The collaboration was reported over the weekend, placing a deliberately provocative performance at the centre of the former Balenciaga creative director's latest accessories push.
Tautou Brings Her Mummification Performance to Fashion
Tautou said the New York performance remained rooted in the work she was already making, but marked a first for her professionally. 'The performance itself was still completely rooted in the work I already make,' she said. 'It's the first time I've brought one of my public performances into a brand partnership.'
The stunt also drew attention on Citizen, the neighbourhood safety app, after people began circulating alerts and images from the scene. Tautou said more than 50 people sent her screenshots and added, 'This is actually the first performance I've done that ended up going viral on Citizen, too.' The reaction turned the pavement outside the Alexander Wang store into both a performance space and an unexpected piece of street marketing.
Tautou had already attracted attention on 25 September after staging another public mummification work at the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles. In that performance, titled Public Figure, 2026, she strapped a nearly nude male participant to the landmark before being detained and cited for trespassing. She later described the work as a contrast between Hollywood's fixation on visibility and a process that obscures the body and removes identity.
Alexander Wang Revives the Rocco Bag
For Wang, the SoHo stunt is tied to a product with serious archive value. The bag debuted in 2009, initially known as the Coco before becoming the Rocco, as a slouchy leather duffel distinguished by rows of metal studs across its base. At the time, demand became intense enough for Barneys New York to build a waiting list of more than 400 customers.
The designer has now brought the Rocco back as fashion continues mining the 2010s for references. Wang's Fall 2026 collection includes the bag in three sizes and with a lighter construction, extending the revival of an accessory that helped define the label's early downtown aesthetic. Its return follows the Ricco, a newer design that Alexander Wang describes as a 'legacy 2.0' interpretation inspired by the original Rocco.
Wang said the original bag was designed to be treated casually rather than protected like a precious object. 'The Rocco was never meant to be polite,' he said. 'We built the bag from the ground up, put studs all across the bottom so it could be thrown around, left on any floor, in any un-precious place.'
A Dominatrix, a Street Pole and an It Bag Walk Into SoHo
For the Rocco's return, Alexander Wang skipped the standard campaign setup and put the handbag at the centre of a street-side bondage performance instead. Tautou wrapped a nearly naked man to a pole in public while the revived bag remained strapped visibly against his body, turning an accessories launch into a scene that looked more like an arrest gone very strangely off-script.
The stunt also gave the Rocco a very different kind of comeback from the polished celebrity campaigns usually attached to revived It bags. First released in 2009, the studded handbag is now returning alongside images of a bound man on a New York street, giving its relaunch an instantly recognisable visual hook. For passers-by, the result was simple: a nearly naked man taped to a pole, a dominatrix standing beside him and an Alexander Wang handbag positioned squarely in the middle of it all.
