Look at this bag! Isn’t it “beary” lovely? This is one of my mom’s favorite bags. Whenever she goes out with this bag, everybody says, “What a lovely bag! Where did you buy it?” She says that everybody must be intrigued by its cubic shape and colorful design. You can transform it into a vessel shape if you like. My mom says that when she goes out with this bag, almost all the people who see the bag ask her where she bought it. Guess where it is from. She bought it in Tokyo, but it was made in Kenya.

The colorful small triangular frills are generating an exotic atmosphere. Those frills are made of traditional African women’s dresses which are not used any more. Look at the inside of the bag! The lining is also made of African women’s dresses. This bag is a recycled, no, UP-cycled product made by Kenyan women.

The olive green cloth used to be a grain sack. It was dyed in dark green. The buckles of the handles used to be the color samples of a leather manufacturing company. That’s why you can see numbers on the buckles. Thus, all the parts of the bag are made of second-hand materials, UP-cycled into such a lovely bag.

The bag is a hand-made product by Kenyan women. The elaborate design of the bag, which is decorated with small triangular frills and square leather buckles in different colors, requires a lot of manual labor. In other words, a lot of women are needed in order to complete one bag. The decorative design can create more employment opportunities for women than just a simple one. This sophisticated and labor-intensive design was created by an Italian designer. Thanks to her, a lot of Kenyan women have been empowered.

Women love lovely things. This is a universal truth. My mom is always looking for lovely UP-cycled products because she wants to introduce them to participants of the training programs where she works as a trainer. If you have lovely up-cycled products such as bags, accessories, and clothes, please let me know. You can reach me by clicking the “Contact” tab on the EEN website.