STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With the plastic bag ban in effect Sunday, there may actually be a renewed interest in the brown paper bag -- once used for covering school books, as most Gen Xers may recall.

The brown bag lunch doesn’t have to be dull with dads like this Minneapolis-based graphic designer Bryan Dunn has been using his son’s brown paper lunch bags as art canvases for more than a year.

At her fall/winter 2012 runway show, Sander sent out models clutching her Vasari purse -- essentially a brown paper bag that looks exactly like a brown paper bag, except it retails for $290.