The Ligie the Mermaid purse (Dropship item)

A stunning purse by Voglio Bene, featuring richly detailed imagery printed on polyester fabric. The front and back display different prints, and the piece is finished with a zip closure and lined interior.

• Voglio Bene, made in France
• Size: 9.5 × 14 cm
• Weight: 30 g

Symbolism

The legacy of Venus: The pose of the depicted mermaid is based on the ancient Venus pudica iconography, in which one hand covers the breast and the other the lower body. This gesture has been known since the Hellenistic period and was transmitted to the Renaissance particularly through sculptures and paintings of Venus. It does not signify shame in the modern sense, but rather a controlled withdrawal into oneself. The gesture refers to the power of beauty, vitality, and fertility that is not openly given but protected and held inwardly. Venus’s mythological allure is a life-generating, world-moving force that manifests as natural attraction and balance. This idea remains present in the figure, even though the classical goddess has been transformed into another form.

The mermaid is an ancient mythological figure, known already in classical sources and medieval bestiaries. Unlike later fairy-tale interpretations, early mermaid symbolism is ambivalent. It combines seduction, danger, and transgression. The mermaid exists between two worlds: the depths of the sea and a liminal zone that touches human reality. Symbolically, it represents the unconscious, instinctive wisdom, and an attraction that can draw one into profound depths but may also lead astray if approached without awareness.

Combined meaning: In ancient mythology, Venus’s allure is a life-giving force that sets order in motion, whereas the mermaid’s attraction belongs to a threshold realm, where the call leads toward unconscious depths and may also result in disorientation. The union of Venus and the mermaid brings together the archetype of love and desire with a deep, non-verbal layer of the psyche. Beauty here is not merely harmonious or oriented toward light, but also deep, enigmatic, and oceanic. The figure carries both attraction and warning, reminding us that true allure arises from a connection to one’s own depths and the capacity to remain conscious within them.

Symbolism is by nature multilayered, unfolding in a range of interpretations that each person may approach from their own perspective, thus deepening the understanding of the symbol’s many dimensions.