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Bags that are "as easy to use as they are to look at." That's Proper Assembly co-founder Becky Shim Paguia on the marriage of form and function in her brand new line of backpacks, totes, and weekenders, which launch today. Designed in Brooklyn with her buddy Nate Poekert, Proper Assembly began as a quest to create "a more refined gym sack," but wound up growing to a range of totes, backpacks, and weekenders.
Prices start at $85 for a collapsible, water-repellant tote that folds into its own front leather pocket, and top out at $225 for a generous-but-lightweight weekender. A pair of rucksacks round out the selection: the Cinch bag (which Lucky EIC Eva Chen gave some love in her October editor's letter) and a classic backpack style complete with an interior laptop sleeve (that one got the #EvaChenPose just last week).
Colors and patterns are sophisticated without being stuffy, unisex without being lifeless: Ochre yellow is paired with cognac brown leather trimmed in yellow edge paint; micro-stripe Japanese denim is offset with black leather accents, finished in a shock of blue edge paint. Quality materials and construction technique was important to the designers, who produce their bags at a factory in the Dominican Republic.
We love that they have the bags photographed on models of three different heights, so you can get an idea of the scale based on a 5'4" girl, a 5'8" girl, and a 6'1" dude.
If good looks weren't enough, Proper Assembly has a do-good initiative, too: They've partnered with The Adventure Project and Living Goods to create jobs and sustainable health programs in developing countries. Every Proper Assembly sale generates the approximate cost to cover a tote bag used by local women to sell health supplies door-to-door via a business-in-a-bag operation.
· Proper Assembly [Official Site]
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