Telfar: Black-owned Fashion Manufacturer Wins Style Award For Vegan Leather Store shopping Bag

Black-owned fashion label Telfar recently won a Design Museum award for creating a vegan-leather, gender-neutral shopping bag looking to redefine the stereotypical idea of luxury fashion being only white, privileged, and aspirational.

Founded back 2005 in New York City by Liberian-American designer Telfar Clemens and his organization partner Babak Radbo, Telfar won the Fashion Pattern of 2020 award from London’s Design Museum meant for creating a the trendy, unisex vegan-leather shopping bag. 

With the tagline ‘Not for you personally - for everyone’, Telfar has redefined the stereotypical idea of luxury fashion being white and privileged. The tote is normally symbolic of the brand’s community-led outlook and is definitely this way. For example, in September this past year, the duo launched a variety of luxury durags, also known as a wave cap, that's worn to accelerate the advancement of waves or dreadlocks in the wild hair, which is normally shockingly banned by the NBA, the NFL, in malls, schools and workplaces across the U.S.

Speaking about why is the bag different, Clemens stated, “This is a status bag but the status has nothing in connection with price. That is clearly a new category, so far as I’m concerned.”

Embossed with the TC logo design, the bags are manufactured from 100% vegan set and twill lining, packaged in a 100% cotton drawstring tote, and are available in 3 sizes and nine colours, incorporating black, dark olive, white colored, tan, and oxblood. According to the brand, the hand bags are easy to use because of their adaptability and show both straps and handles, making them a good fit for formal and efficient uses alike.

Clemens launched the carrier during Telfar’s Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, however the bags started getting noticed only around 2017, the same calendar year that Clemens won the prize of US$400,000 in the CFDA/Vogue Vogue Fund Awards. Investing that money back into his collection, he revamped the carrier adding additional sizing and color choices.

In an interview with the Guardian, Clemens discussed how the idea for the bag came during Christmas years back. “Just seeking at everyone with their paper looking bags, I realized that this is a completely unisex silhouette. We measured a Bloomingdale’s bag to help make the primary sample. When it found the price, I based it on just what a DJ might help to make in a night time; that’s what felt best for me.”

Also dubbed just as the ‘Bushwick Birkin’, referencing a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, Clemens mentioned he didn’t want to provide the impression that the bag was limited to a select few. “Very well, there is some truth to that - it’s all over the place in Brooklyn. But it’s not really the whole story. The matter we are actually proud of is that people sell a lot of bags in areas that do not have a single fashion store - that happen to be off the radar for style and way of life: Chattanooga, Birmingham, Oakland, [Washington] DC, Baltimore. Bushwick is cool, but what is absolutely unique to your bag is those other cities.”

In addition to the award, the Telfar shopping handbag has garnered take pleasure in from celebrities want DJ Solange Knowles, actress Issa Rae and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Emily King, guest curator at the look Museum, celebrated the brand’s win: “In an era where true extravagance is having a functioning health insurance and social security system, I think their slogan - ‘Not really for you personally, for everyone’ - rings most evident.”

Author Carol Tulloch said, “[They] magnify the value of black design. Telfar Clemens believes in ‘living your fashion life’ - that's, being who you happen to be on a day-to-day basis.”

The handbags are priced according to sizes from US$140 for a mini to US$240 for a large bag and are open to buy here.

According to a recently available report by Bangalore-based tech alternatives firm Infinitum Global, the vegan leather market is predicted to reach US$89 billion by 2025 when consumers grow more conscious about animal welfare and choose vegan leather alternatives instead of traditional animal-based leather.

If you too are seeking vegan tote alternatives in Asia, this is a set of cruelty-free brands we take pleasure in created by Asian founders.