Gen Z turns 70-year-old street seller into viral sensation for ludicrously capacious bag
It’s 8 a.m.and a crowd of trendy young women have swarmed a spot on West Houston and Sullivan Street in SoHo.
But they’re not waiting for the latest fro-yo craze or a Harry Styles sighting.Instead, these cool downtown kids are waiting for a 70-year-old Romanian immigrant named Peter Farkas.
A tall, burly man with the boundless energy of a golden retriever, Farkas has been a leatherworker for over 50 years, and is responsible for pieces worn by the Hells Angels, Tony Soprano, and the Rolling Stones.Farkas even created Bruce Springsteen’s outfit for the 1987 hit “Tunnel of Love.” But Farkas is getting a second shot at fame thanks young shoppers across the city after going viral on TikTok in May.“I tried to retire and this happened,” the old-school New Yorker told The Post.While Peter has been selling the ludicrously capacious bags since his now-failed retirement plan, sales skyrocketed overnight thanks to influencer Janell Roberts, who told her 341,000 followers that Farkas’s bags were the secret status item of 2026.“I’ve been looking everywhere for this man and finally found him! Every bag is handmade and it’s hugeeeee and the bag is $35 bucks obsessed! #newbag his name is Peter he’s on Sullivan street in SoHo,” her caption on TikTok read.Roberts had been trying to find Farkas for four months after first spotting him in the stylish downtown neighborhood earlier that year.
Since Farkas’s social media debut, he’s been mobbed by shoppers eager to get the TikTok look.Each week, his daughters Jessica, Harley and Tana schlep up to 500 bags to SoHo’s St.
Anthony Market or the UWS Grand Bazaar Market with lines around the corner.This Friday, he and his daughters were in SoHo with four tables piled high with his signature bag as customers — and now fans — rummaged through them.“This is my third time,” May Ng, an e-commerce executive, told The Post.“I need to complete the set.
It’s like Labubu; I need them all,” she said, comp...