May 19, 2009
Live@ICFF: Best Bag
Our senior editor bestows the ICFF’s most coveted award: best promotional tote bag.
I gave a nod to a promotional bag a few years back, and now I feel it’s time for some more recognition. Tom Dixon’s copper lamé shoulder bags were impossible to ignore and in high demand. The only longer booth lines occured in the i Salone section when the Italians started serving up gelato, risotto, and Champagne. But there was a dark-horse contender: the Stockholm City Mission bag. If you were fortunate enough to run into Eero Koivisto, he probably handed you one of these two-sided textile versions of the classic plastic shopper. Claesson Koivisto Rune designed them pro bono for the nonprofit organization of that name, which receives 16 tons of textile donations a year. The homeless select two different fabrics, cut them to pattern, and sew them up. It’s a simple, smart, and totally worthwhile endeavor.