The Hip Flask Is One Of The Most Successful Products Ever
These days products of any kind have an extremely short life cycle. It might have to do with the ever-decreasing attention spans of people around the globe, or with the incredible abundance of all product categories. We do live in a hyper consuming world.
So products come and go in spell-binding speed. Even really good products don’t make it that long. Take the CD for example, a product that improved to no end on its predecessor – the cassette tape – couldn’t hold the fortress for more than a decade and a half; there came the MP3 and the CD was gone. There are numerous other examples.
To see a product that has its feet planted deep in the ground, that goes for decades, even centuries with almost no change in purpose or design is truly remarkable. There are very few of those – the toilet paper, the slot machine – and the reason we are gathered here today – the hip flask.
The Origin of the Hip Flask
Hip flasks have been around since the end of the 18th century. It doesn’t mean people didn’t carry alcohol around before – they did. The wineskin is ancient as wine itself. One could guess that once man discovered alcohol, he immediately wanted to carry it around with him whenever he wanted. Makes sense.
The hip flask, in its current form, was first designated as a gentleman’s accessory. Along with the pocket watch, dudes back then walked around in style. The very first hip flasks were made of copper, a material that is easy to work with and is pretty cheap. Even today there are companies that make copper flasks, for those that are looking for an old-school look & feel. But of course that’s not all – you can find online many different types of hip flasks, like on Flaskaholic – Best, Cool & Most Stylish Hip Flasks website that is your starting point for everything you want to know about flasks.
Hip Flasks for Women – Really?
Yes, really. Men got to keep the hip flask all to themselves only until Prohibition hit the American land of not-so-freedom. With booze gone underground, the ladies of the roaring 20’s embraced the hip flask and even outdid men with the hidden garter flask.
Embraced and made it their own no doubt – today there are no less types and designs of flasks for women than there is for men. Bridesmaids have also embraced the personalized flask as a must-have memorabilia from the wedding, and fashion companies are creating wearables, like the bracelet flask.
The Best Hip Flask? One That Holds Liquor
Going back to Prohibition. Those dry years in America were a major breakthrough for this already century old product. All of a sudden everyone wanted – everyone needed! – a cool hip flask. Actually, they didn’t need it to be cool, just be able to conceal alcohol and quench the national thirst.
It’s a great tale to learn from, how with a bit of ‘luck’ a novelty product, a specialty product meant for high society, spread like fire through the lower echelons of society due to an unexpected political act that created a need. In this case, the need to drink in secret, to conceal the fact that you carry alcohol. It’s a pretty far-fetched need – who would have imagined that such a need would arise on such a scale? – but as the cliché goes, realty exceeds the imagination.
The massive, sudden expansion of the hip flask made room to various types of flasks, mainly in relations to the material it was made of, but saved it’s iconic, flat shape.
Current Flask Trends – Personalized, Hidden, Designed
The proliferation of manufacturing (and the move to Asia) enabled a sharp decrease in the prices of flasks, making them even more affordable than ever before. Combine that with the reach of the internet and you can understand how hip flasks are blooming online.
You can find an endless selection of designs; stylish stainless-steel flasks for women with beautiful prints, cool & edgy titanium flasks for men, oversized flasks (if you’re into that kind of things) and unique novelty flasks like Rihanna made a splash with at the Grammy’s.
There is the trend of hidden flasks, disguised as a purse, or a belt buckle or even a hairbrush! Some think there is an issue with the trend, that it encourages illegal drinking, but that’s a whole different story.
All in all it seems that hip flasks are here to stay. They are timeless in that sense, always will be in vogue, always room for coming up with new designs that corresponds with current fashion.
