the “It" bag of the decade

looking at the long-term impact of Telfar and those iconic shopping bags

the next installment of Black fashion history month is dedicated to that one item everyone and their mama has been coveting and/or collecting for the last couple of years: the Telfar bag. 

or the “Tevin Campbell” bag as my boyfriend jokingly calls it due to the aforementioned singer and the cult fashion designer (Telfar Clemens) sharing the same initials — it’s hard to miss these letters as they make up the brand’s logo and are vividly embossed to stand out on the shopping bags. 

with just one scroll of IG’s explore page, you might notice how many people have leveraged proximity to Telfar; this is included, but not limited to:

• the amount of influencers that have styled the item

• advertisements i’ve seen of other brands featuring a conveniently placed Telfar bag

• the amount of collaborations Clemens is accruing with other established companies like Converse and Ugg.

his brand is bigger than the bag and in many ways, it’s a movement in and of itself.

established in 2005, Telfar’s trajectory is not the overnight success cynics will make it out to be. it has been great to witness this bag (and Telfar overall) become a household name and an iconic must-have for everyone (as is implied by the brand motto).

as shown in my personal photo shoot, i have two of these shopping bags, (one small, one medium) and i thoroughly enjoy being at a moment in time to be able to access new heights in terms of Black luxury fashion.

but as i learn more about the overall lifecycle and sustainability (or lack thereof) of certain fabrics, i’m not so sure if i will buy another one. the shopping bags are made of faux leather, which in this specific case equates to polyurethane (PU) - a plastic material that, if not manufactured or recycled properly, will inevitably result in more microplastics ending up in our waterways and bodies.

i’ve always been an advocate of slow fashion, but it’s been a more recent interest of mine to look at the overall environmental cost of fashion. i learned this information about PU after attending an open education course from Slow Factory featuring designer Sonica Sarna, in which she explained and proposed more circularity in terms of ethical fashion production — it was, coincidentally enough, the same morning that i had just placed an order for my second Telfar bag. while PU is not the worst offender in terms of generating microplastics, it is still something to be aware of.

**in the same course, i had to grapple with the fact that two of my favorite things in the world (glitter and sequins) are also not so kind to the planet, but there’s innovations being made here as well. truthfully, this is why i prefer secondhand/vintage because any given item has already been produced and doesn’t necessarily yield a higher demand for it to be produced again in the same manner**

circling back to Telfar, i do appreciate the brand for disrupting and restructuring what we think of as luxury fashion and making it more accessible for the masses. it’s beautiful to witness a Black designer get such well-deserved acclaim and i always enjoy seeing people stylishly sport the highly-versatile Telfar bag.

and in full transparency: the collector in me wants the large shopping bag to complete the set! i’m just curious if more designers (Telfar included) will branch out and experiment with more sustainable materials as the possibilities of faux leather are ever-expanding.