Mood Enhancing Handbags!
As the bright lights and festive atmosphere of December become a distant memory, and we all face into a grey and dreary January, it’s time to look at a small thing that can make a big difference to your mood and wardrobe. And it doesn’t involve dieting or Dry January!
Most women carry a handbag or bag every day, but in the depths of winter when outfits can tend to become based around dark colours, life can become very monochrome.
So what is needed is a bright, colourful handbag that will be practical for work, the school run, shopping, travel or for the baby stuff. A handbag that is water repellent and lined with recycled jeans to give a strong and long lasting lining that won’t rip or tear. A handbag that when worn is mood enhancing and brings a smile to its wearer’s face and gets admiring glances from friends. What is needed is a Sallyann Bag.
Sallyann’s Bags are made from water repellent outer fabrics and lined with recycled denim jeans. The bags are bright, colourful and eye catching – mood enhancing handbags designed and made in West Clare. And they are vegan friendly!
Many of the outer fabrics are designed by me, and they are inspired by the rich patchwork of wildflowers surrounding my home in West Clare, including daisies and fuchsias. The jeans used in the linings are sourced from charity shops across the Mid West of Ireland, and this means that there is a little bit of good in every bag, where each bag represents a pair of jeans that has not gone into landfill, and makes a contribution to a local charity like the MidWest Simon Community.
I design my fabrics and handbags to be beautiful, practical and useful. I genuinely feel that a bright, colourful handbag can have a positive impact on both an outfit and the wearer’s mood, and my customers seem to agree with me, often returning time and again for another fabric design in equally vibrant colours. Their only complaint is that the quality of my bags is too good, so they cannot justify their purchase of another bag on the grounds that the last one has worn out, but they just want another happy Sallyann Bag! My handbags have travelled all over the world with their owners, and I often get sent photos of their bag’s adventures on social media.
In an exciting start to 2019, Sallyann’s Handmade Bags has been selected to be a participant in the prestigious “Going For Growth” programme run by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG. This will involve a six month programme of round table meetings facilitated by Marian O’Gorman, CEO of the Kilkenny Group. The first meeting will be held in Dublin on 14 January 2019. This will be followed immediately by Sallyann’s Handmade Bags exhibiting at Showcase Ireland 2019 within the Local Enterprise Office section at stand F39. Showcase Ireland is the premier trade show in Ireland from 20 – 23 January. This will enable me to bring my West Clare-made bags to the attention of retail buyers from across Ireland, Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan, amongst other countries.
Sallyann Bags can be found online at www.sallyannsbags.com and at selected retailers around Ireland, including the Irish Design Gallery in Dún Laoghaire, Shannon Airport Duty Free, the Shannon Irish Design Store at Bunratty Co Clare, Spillers Lane Gallery Clonakilty Co Cork, Park Avenue Giftware Navan Co Meath and the Design Lodge, Lahinch Co Clare. Sallyann is a regular participant at the highly regarded Chapel Lane Market in Ennis (open every Saturday from mid-February – December) and also sells her bags at Bloom in the Park in Dublin and the Ballymaloe Craft Fair at Ballymaloe House Co Cork.
