maryannbags

Read our story and learn about our history, our philosophy and how we got started in a two bedroom apartment with a student-model sewing machine.

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• Vision:

  MaryannBags, ltd is duplicating this women’s empowerment program, Lydia’s Purse, locally and globally – seeking to recycle overflowing fabric piles (indigenous to each location), repurposing individual lives, and reclaiming our global community – fostering an appreciation of the rich, valuable, cultural diversity in every woman, village and nation!

• We are excited to announce our partnership with the India Gospel League. MaryannBags is now working with Becky Stanley of IGL to bring hope and a vision of economic empowerment to over 3,000 women in impoverished villages and prisons in Southeast India. These women will earn above fair wages producing MaryannBags while preparing to launch the first collection this fall.

• Update:

  rePURpoSE

  Discarded fabrics are RECLAIMED from burgeoning landfills and RECYCLED into designer handbags, as a metaphor for the precious women we empower!

  

  MaryannBags, ltd is creating a social entrepreneurship program called, Lydia’s Purse. Partnering with local and global mission agencies individual women are empowered spiritually and professionally to rise up from generational poverty. In the high quality of their work, we hope you, too, will see the value and great beauty of their lives and culture.

  Maryann traveled to India in August 2009, Maryann teaches her patterns to the Master, (shown below) training the women at IGL’s Export Unit, as well as the teachers from rural sewing centers.

  

  The women will be paid equal wages as men, $5 per day, well above the $1 per day average for developing nations. Many young women from IGL’s sewing centers share personal stories that they are paid well enough for a dowry or secondary education, returning to support their home villages.

  

  This collection of MaryannBags is made from RECYCLED Silk Saris (above).

  Made in partnership with India Gospel League Salem, Tamil Nadu (rural India)

  “Together we can do much more” – IGL

• We have recently entered a local partnership with the Haven of Rest in Akron, Ohio. From discarded home decor fabrics to designer MessengerBags; the women of Harvest Home will be empowered to rebuild their homes.

  The collections are created from RECYCLED home décor fabrics: sources vary from fabric and furniture stores’ discontinued swatches, to stockpiles donated by seamstresses/textile aficionados.

  The designs are a metaphor for the women we seek to support: discarded remnants, REPURPOSED into designer handbags of worth and value – just like each amazing, individual woman!

  The patterns are designed to reflect not only a care for society, but also a sincere concern for our environment: as swatches are RECLAIMED from burgeoning landfills, so too, the patterns use as much of the original size pieces of fabric, lessening the amount of waste in creating each bag. In fact, all that is left at the bottom of the trash bin are wispy cuts of thread…and empty plastic spools are sent to a local recycler! (you may see grommet holes, serged edges or swatch info papers still glued to the bags – deliberately so, you know, our mission)