How Fancy Water Bottles Became a 21st-Century Status Symbol
The potential judgment of students can lead a teacher to do strange things. For Monique Mongeon, an arts educator in Toronto, starting a job teaching adults sparked a small crisis of confidence. “I was in my mid-20s, and I was looking at things I could do to make myself feel like a person who had authority to stand in front of a bunch of other 20-somethings,” she says. After ruling out fancy bags and shoes as too extravagant, Mongeon settled on a sleek $45 water bottle. “I was scrolling through websites thinking, Which of these S’well bottles looks like the kind of person I want to be?”
Nine years ago, there was only one S’well, and it was blue. Now you can get the curvy, steel-capped bottles in more than 200 size-and-color combinations, including some that look like marble or teakwood. Many are customizable with your initials. The. They’re a common sight in Instagram photos of artfully stuffed vacation carry-ons and aesthetically pleasing desk tableaux.
