In as early as 2007, Anya Hindmarch was one of the first designers to ever make a stand on single use plastic. Yep, I’m talking about that “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” canvas tote that retailed for just £5, that flew off the shelves everywhere in the world, and were quickly found on the resellers market and eBay alike, with some even being sold for more than 10 times the actual price.

Fast forward to 2020, Anya is back with a sustainable tote, in Clementine (orange) and Charcoal (black), which this time, proclaims “I AM a Plastic Bag” in the very same cursive font that she used on the 2007 edition. Wait what? “Where’s the plastic?”, you might ask… Well guess what? each of these shoppers are made from an innovative new cotton canvas-feel fabric that’s actually created from 32 half litre recycled plastic bottles. The fabric is then coated with recycled windscreens. Yep, so yes, the bag certainly IS a plastic bag in this sense, even though it may not look like one. Look closer and you’d notice that the bag’s repeated cuboid motif also spell out “I AM A PLASTIC BAG” on each side of the cube, though, the motif sans the alphabets, kinda remind me of those on Pierre Hardy bags… hmm…

The piping, lettering (with A and H on each side) and cursive fonts are made from leather sourced from a Gold Standard Working Group Tannery to ensure full traceability of byproduct skins with no deforestation. On the interior, you’d also find a leather-trimmed zipped pocket with a labelled leather card holder, also from the same source. So yes this bag is 100% sustainable, with zero carbon footprint.

Oh, and instead of staging a runway show or presentation like she does during London Fashion Week (which is happening like, right now!) she closed all of her London boutiques for 3 days during this period, and filled them up with used plastic bottles (up to over 90,000 of them!) that were collected by her team, from local communities to make a statement.

Despite the impact of our 2007 I’m Not A Plastic Bag project, the problem of single use plastic is far from solved. The mission has changed however, from ‘awareness’ of the problem to ‘circularity’ of materials, something we’ve spent the last two years working on with the I Am A Plastic Bag project. ~ Anya Hindmarch ~

Retailing at £595 to £695 each, a limited number of these items from the “I AM a Plastic Bag” campaign have been pre-launched on Net-a-Porter ahead of the main collection’s drop in April.

Images: Anya Hindmarch