The Bag Messenger BlogBag Design and Urban Living

Made in US, taking another look : Xenophobia or importance of maintaining basic skills?

Today, the front page of the newspaper declared that more companies
are looking to re-start domestic manufacturing after analyzing their costs for importing products with increased transportation costs.  These companies, who only a short time earlier, found it convenient to sell their plants and put their workers out of jobs, are now faced with lack of options domestically, both for manufacturing and raw materials.
      Tucker and Bloom, a bag company helping people organize their life and technical gear, with style.  A start-up company based in Nashville, TN with deep roots in the bag industry (25+ years as a designer both domestically and internationally), is choosing to manufacture domestically from it’s beginning.  True, manufacturing products here means a higher unit costs for labor, until the cost of transportation and unsold inventory do away with profit.

Musings on Bag Design

Once upon a time, when this bag designer was just a novice, I used to look at the master pieces put out by Judith Lieber, Myers and a bunch of manufacturers that were well grounded in construction, with awe.  Today, I see a field of sewn containers with little imagination, slight differences with interchangeable labels. 
        Perhaps, one might say I have been in the bag business too long or that I have seen it all before.  Design is cyclical, repeating over time or drawing inspiration from the past.  The consumer doesn’t gravitate to great leaps in design or at least it seems to me that changes in design trends are more incremental. 
        Kudos, to Crumpler, Maderina Duck for daring to be different.