Rebagz™ Handbags are made from vibrant recycled rice sacks and woven juice packs. Style comes first with us, and our “eco” focus is the icing the cake. We just launched the Rebagz line last July and are now in over 200 stores in 40 states and 4 countries. We’re fortunate in that a lot of magazines have featured us and “Ugly Betty’s” America Ferrera chose to wear one of our bags on her show – as if we didn’t love her enough already!

Our woven line is made from recycled juice packs, the kind you just stick a straw in and sip from, while the rice sacks look as they did when they were holding rice, amazing designs and all. These “fabrics” inspire me to develop silhouettes that celebrate their beauty. My aim is to create handbags that are as varied and versatile as they are stylish for women of all ages – and men too, who are big fans of our messenger bags. We’re finding that the young crowd is especially drawn to our bags because, as eco-conscious as they are, they still like their handbags to look exciting and vibrant.

I was selling my handmade jewelry designs but wanted to expand to a larger market. I’d already sold some handbags along with my jewelry and my dear friend and co-author Christine Calla (“Beading Vintage Style Jewelry”/Sterling Publishing), who’d grown up in the Philippines, suggested I head to Manila with my ideas. While there, I discovered an organization that was working with the recycled juice pack weave and began working with them to create my designs. I started the rice sack line, however, from butt scratch, literally roaming the markets in search of rice merchants to see what sacks they had – and then trying to convince them to sell the used ones to me to make handbags. That request got a lot of strange looks.

Given that I did humanitarian work in Mexico following the Zapatista rebellion and that my mama was a serious recycler, the choice to work with recycled materials was an obvious one. You have to remember that people have been using rice, flour and feed sacks for hundreds of years to make rough clothing. Also, we make sure the people who make our bags are treated and paid decently. We wouldn’t have it any other way and don’t think our customers would, either.

I found an adorable rice sack decorated with the cutest panda I’d ever seen. I couldn’t wait to work with this “fabric” and knew we could sell thousands of handbags made from them. Then I found out the sacks were from a discontinued brand of rice and there were only a couple of hundred sacks left. After tearing a few chunks of hair out in frustration, I came up with the idea of creating a Limited Edition line – Rebagz L.E. – for situations like this. Our L.E. handbags celebrate the unique beauty and rarity of the Panda sack and others like it, and remind us that many things around us have limits too.

I headed to Manila for the first time in April 2007 with only some sketchy ideas for handbag designs. Yet I managed to launch the Rebagz line that July at the California Gift Show when all I had was a part-time assistant. Another thing I’m proud of is that, despite the recession, we continue to get lots of new customers, which indicates to me that our bags are not only “eco-fashion forward” but properly priced as well. The fact that our customers, our employees, a number of magazine editors and even Ugly Betty are happy with our Rebagz line makes me one giddy and grateful designer.