Artie- The Artist's bag

: "About 5 years back, I felt the need for an artist bag. I browsed for one in vain. That is when I thought of making one by myself. I designed a bag to meet my needs and with the blueprint, approached my Uncle Johns, another artist. He and I bought the necessary raw materials and  got to work putting it together. The bag was mostly hand sewn and some parts were even glued together. I had the final piece ready and was pretty proud of it. Imagine my surprise when, in two days, the bag started to resemble a dead rat! That was when I decided that the next girl I date had to have superior sewing skills!


Luckily for me, a year later, Lilia came into the picture.

 : "I was very excited when Rosh asked me if we could make an artist's bag. I checked online on what was already available and could hardly find a viable option. Of course, there was the 'Nomad', the greatest artist bag you could own, but that was way too expensive ! "

However, we wanted to try something simpler and much more affordable. We sat down and designed our very first prototype. This is how it turned out to be. 

Now we realized that while this was perfect for an artist like me, somebody like Rosh would need more space to carry around his numerous tools. That is how the next bag came into being. It had a flap on either side of the main pocket. So now it could hold twice the number of tools.With the fastening in the form of a tie-up,  the bag was made bigger and the fabrics used were canvas and thick cotton. Though this greatly helped in giving the bag a more defined shape and stability, attaching the straps turned out to be quite troublesome. The multiple layers made it too thick to pass under my machine's foot.  Hence the straps, instead of being on the sides had to go behind. Another lesson learned ! Also, this time, I replaced the cotton webbing and fabric pocket with elastic and net. This gave the tools more visibility.

The second prototype:

From the second prototype we learned that tie-ups can be quite cumbersome, hence we decided to replace it with a Velcro fastening from here forth.

Now we decided it was time to show the bags to other artists and take feedback . We took them to Rosh's office and  lo and behold, we were commissioned for 3 bags! Excited and encouraged, we got back to work.

                     

The very first commissioned bag was made of thick cotton and canvas. The dimensions where all as per requirement. The final product was as below.

The second was made with denim . This time we were more experimental. So it had a 2 colour denim patch-worked flap and a zippered compartment was added on the flap as per client requirement. When presented with the finished bag , my client asked me if I could add a shoulder pad, something I had never attempted before. I was a little apprehensive but decided to give it a go. I ended up loving how it turned out and I am so grateful to him for providing us with the challenge.

Now, with a whole lot more orders coming our way, we are raring to go. Thank you so much for the trust you have placed in us and our products.

Models: Manu,Akhil,Subin

Clicks courtesy: Pravin Stanley Johnson, Akhil Mohandas