British Bag Makers, the fast-growing Radstock-based company, will create unique handbags from a pop-up workshop at this year’s Bath in Fashion event – showing how British manufacturing continues to lead the world in luxury leather bag-making.
Fashion celebrities such as milliner Stephen Jones, interiors expert Nina Campbell, supermodel Jade Parfitt, fashion writer Iain R Webb, and Olympic Gold medal winner Amy Williams, will be invited to design a bag which will be made into a one-of-a-kind accessory at the city centre unit.
British Bag Makers will also produce limited edition souvenir Bath in Fashion bags which will be auctioned by Bath MP Don Foster at a special lunch at the Bath Spa Hotel to raise funds for The Forever Friends Appeal’s Cancer Care Campaign on April 26.
British Bag Makers manufactures products for a select cluster of Bond Street brands as well as the Bath-based Liz Cox designer label. The firm uses traditional craft methods to produce its upmarket bags – tapping into Somerset’s leather-working heritage and preserving skills which had all but disappeared a generation
ago as production was off-shored by firms such as shoemakers Clarks.
For the fashion industry now, a ‘Made in England’ tag is almost as important as a designer logo – denoting originality and quality.
As a result, British Bag Makers now employs 50 people including apprentices who are taught traditional handcraft skills. The firm, which has the slogan ‘Gorgeous bags for Great British brands’, recently expanded into larger premises and capacity is set to double to meet growing demand.
Tickets for Bath in Fashion 2013, which runs from April 13-21, are now on sale and are available through the festival’s website bathinfashion.co.uk or from Bath’s Tourist Information Centre next to the Abbey.
The festival has become one of the most talked-about fashion gatherings outside London and this year it takes a look behind the seams at how fashion is presented by showcasing a collection of fashion celebrities who make fashion happen – the people who put the model in the dress and the dress on the page.
