Hemptress: Eco-Conscious Handbags

Arlene Nilsson had her lightbulb moment while designing a medium-size leather handbag during a free-lance job. “If this bag were made out of lambskin, two animals would be dead now because of this one bag,” said Nilsson, referring to the size of a tall satchel bag. “And it freaked me out. I can’t be designing handbags and have animals die because of me. Worse, if they’re made out of PVC, it’s destroying the planet.”

Nilsson had used leather in her handbag designs before, but the small hides of lambskin hit home for her during a time she was also developing an eco-conscious lifestyle. After researching alternative fabrications, she decided to launch her own handbag line that would utilize eco-friendly fabrications and production practices.

The debut Summer 2010 line of Hemptress features handbags made out of organic hemp fabric, lined with hemp/silk fabric, dyed using low-impact dyes, trimmed with recycled bonded leather trims and using recycled nylon zippers. Because the hemp fabric is made and dyed in China, Nilsson manufactures the bags in China as well through fair-trade factories to reduce the shipping carbon footprint. For domestic shipments, Hemptress uses the carbon-neutral shipping program Green Shipping (www.greenshipping.com).

“Being eco-friendly, there’s no hard and pat rules about anything. It’s not just doing one thing. It’s not just using hemp. It’s just being conscious and doing the best wherever you can,” Nilsson said.

“Not everyone is willing to pay for eco-friendly hemp, which is nine or 10 times the price of cotton. If people like the design, that’s No. 1. The designs have to be good. That’s the problem with eco-friendly in terms of handbags. There haven’t been nice designs out there that can be mass-produced,” said Nilsson, who added that she saw some “very beautiful” eco-friendly bags in the market, such as bags that were made from recycled materials, but because of the handwork involved, “they can’t necessarily be mass-produced.”

She adds value by designing each of the bags so they can be held two ways, such as a satchel that has a handle and shoulder strap. Another bag can be held like a tall shopping bag or folded over into a clutch. Wholesale prices are in the moderate range from $34.50 to $84.

For more information, call (310) 562-7529 or e-mail sales@thehemptress.com.—Rhea Cortado