"What a bag..."
- CBC
- 25 apr
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Aggiornamento: 5 giorni fa
5 European bag brands with unique histories and character!
If you didn't grow up in Emilia-Romagna, you may have never heard someone affectionately call you "bag" when you were a little insistent as a child.
I don't know if the nickname derived from the supposed "heaviness" but I like to think that it also somehow denoted the banality of the constant request (in my case probably for an ice cream).
So in the early nineties we can say that bags were not cult objects as they are today (at least in the Bologna countryside).
But are we really sure that today bags, and the brands that produce them, don't really risk appearing heavy or banal?
Too many brands, too much choice, poor quality materials, the same format over and over again, little personality, and a thousand other negative characteristics risk flattening the market.
That's why we present five sustainable European brands, each with its own unique style and story, giving you five different reasons to fall in love and not just buy the usual bag.
Canussa — The Spanish who reinvented leather
Imagine a minimalist shoulder bag, in bold, saturated colors, that you could carry to the office or to dinner. Now imagine that that bag has never touched animal skin, that its interior lining is made of ocean plastic, and that it was hand-sewn by artisans in Valencia. This is Canussa .
Maria Cano founded the brand in Madrid in 2017 with a clear vision: sustainable fashion shouldn't sacrifice elegance. Today, her bags have appeared in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and InStyle, and the brand has achieved B Corp certification with a score of 135.1—a number few companies in the world achieve.
Each bag is designed to last for decades. When it reaches the end of its life, Canussa collects it and transforms it into something new. A cycle that never ends, as it should.
If you're particularly conscious or concerned about animal welfare —or simply want a vegan bag—Canussa is probably your place to start.
Elvis & Kresse — Europe's Chicest Fire Hoses
There's a story behind every Elvis & Kresse bag that no other fashion house can tell. In 2005, Kresse Wesling spotted a pile of discarded fire hoses on the roof of a London barracks, awaiting disposal in a landfill. Those hoses had spent 25 years in use—putting out fires, saving lives—and deserved better.
From that vision, one of the most iconic names in European sustainable luxury was born. Elvis & Kresse recycles pipes from the London Fire Brigade and transforms them into bags, belts, and accessories with an unmistakable texture—robust, waterproof, and with that history stitched into them. Today, they work with over a dozen different recycled materials and have diverted more than 300 tons of material from landfill.
Everything is handmade in their Kent workshop. Their craftsmen are employed permanently and paid the certified Living Wage. Fifty percent of profits are donated to charities related to the materials they use. With a B Corp score of 152.8, they are among the most impactful brands in Europe.
If you love products with an authentic story behind them —ones you can tell—and you care about both the environment and the conditions of those who produce them, Elvis & Kresse is hard to beat.
O My Bag — Amsterdam Has a Heart That Beats Strongly
O My Bag is one of those brands that makes you feel good twice: when you wear it and when you remember why you chose it. Paulien Wesselink launched it in Amsterdam in 2011 with a promise: to create authentic leather bags, hand-sewn in Kolkata by fairly paid workers with real contracts.
By 2025, that promise had translated into 864 jobs, most of them women, and education and empowerment projects that reached over 7,600 people in the communities surrounding the factories. The brand also donates 1% of its annual turnover to local organizations in India.
The style is unmistakable: structured, vintage-chic, with that quality of leather that improves with age and tells the story of where you've been. If you don't want animal skin, starting in 2021, there's also an apple leather line—leather made from apple peel scraps. Yes, really, apples.
If fair work and workers' rights are issues that you feel close to , O My Bag is a brand where every purchase has a very concrete specific weight.
Been London — When waste becomes an object of desire
Been London poses a question: what if waste were the most luxurious material in existence? It's not a provocation. It's their working method.
Every Been London bag is made entirely from materials that would otherwise end up in landfill: leather scraps from tanneries around the world, recycled plastics transformed into silky linings and zippers, pineapple leaves and apple peels transformed into certified vegan leather. The design process always starts with an environmental problem—and the bag is the solution.
The result is handmade pieces in their East London atelier, produced in extremely limited quantities by one of the city's last master leatherworkers. The carbon footprint of each bag is 87% lower than the market average. This isn't a marketing number—it's the result of an independent LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) study.
If the circular economy is your compass —if you love the idea that nothing should end up wasted, that everything can have a second life, more beautiful than the first— Been London is made for you.
Sandqvist — Scandinavian style with nothing to hide
Sandqvist was founded in Stockholm in 2004 by three friends who simply wanted to make beautiful, long-lasting bags. Twenty years later, it has become a European benchmark not only for its design—minimal, functional, with that timeless Nordic simplicity—but above all for something rare in the industry: total transparency.
On their website, you'll find the name of every factory, every supplier, every tannery. You'll find annual sustainability reports with actual data on carbon emissions. You'll find material certifications, details on working conditions in factories in Vietnam and India, and the results of independent audits by the Fair Wear Foundation. Nothing is hidden because there's nothing to hide.
And then there's that thing that made us smile: since 2023, Sandqvist employees have been working four days a week, thirty hours, for the same salary. Because responsibility towards workers begins at home.
If supply chain transparency and respect for workers' rights—at all levels, including internally—are values you won't compromise , Sandqvist is the brand that's committed to you.
Finding the right brand for your values, every time
These five companies have something in common: they don't do good despite their design. They do it through it. The story, the materials, the people who sew—everything is part of the product.
But finding brands like this takes time. And often the certifications that really matter aren't the ones with the biggest print.
ChooseBCause was created to help you do just that: an app that lets you discover and compare European ethical brands based on your core values—animal welfare, fair labor, the circular economy, the environment, and much more. Each score is based on certifications verified by independent third parties.
📲 ChooseBCause is coming! Sign up here to stay informed about the launch!
Some links in this article are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, ChooseBCause receives a small commission—at no additional cost to you. We only choose brands we truly believe in.