Eco Fashion World

‘Call me when you’re there’, she wrote. ‘So I can pick you up from the front of the house’. While I admire the blossoming tree in her garden, she appears. Brown hair, simple outfit and a shy smile: bag designer Ashley Watson is not someone for the spotlights. She leads me around the house to her studio in the basement. One girl is working on cutting the leather while soft music plays in the background. It looks like a quiet space where true creation can happen. And it does.

Although it happened by accident, a few years ago. Ashley made a bag out of an old leather jacket and people around her loved it. She started making more and sold all. There was no big idea, business plan or vision behind it. She just loved what she was doing and realized she could make her living out of it. Her brand has evolved since and is still strongly grounded in the same concept: creating bags out of old leather jackets. Her bags have a vintage look and feel which makes them utterly fashionable. ‘Some customers love it when the leather is a bit scratched, while others prefer smooth materials’.

Ashley shows me the room where the coats and jackets are neatly hanging next to each other, organized by color. ‘I go shopping twice a month and know all the thrift stores by now where I can find these jackets. Normally I bring my parents because they get a discount as elderly people which helps me to keep the price low’. She smiles hesitantly, as if almost apologizing for this strategy to run her small business low-budget. ‘I know exactly what I am looking for and love it when I find rare colors like this purple jacket or that silver coat. Those are real finds and it is sometimes heartbreaking to cut them up in pieces to make a bag’. But whenever she cuts them up, she does it in such a way that the unique details stay preserved. ‘Those are the ones that give authenticity to each and every bag’. And left-over's? They can be used in clutches, wallets and belts and in the small detailing, when a pattern doesn’t match the amount of fabric.

Aside from her one employee and good friend who cuts the patterns out of the leather, Ashley hand- sews every bag herself. ‘People often think there is a huge company behind my brand, but we’re still small. I am an artist and not a business woman, I like to create’. The economic recession has been hard on her, but she persists in what she is doing. There are enough ideas, like her latest collaboration with Lina Rennell which makes for a star product. Lina Rennell’s organic cotton canvas in fabulous prints printed in water based non-toxic inks with Ashley’s recycled leather. We all want one of those. And more: from Ashley Watson.

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