Wearing Anya Hindmarch: Angelina Jolie / Naomi Watts / Jennifer Garner / Reese Witherspoon
It all started for Anya Hindmarch at age 18, when, after a spur-of-the-moment decision to study in Florence, she had a brainwave to import a popular Italian bag design back to the UK. Thanks to some contacts at Harpers & Queen, the bag featured in the magazine and Anya received an order for 500. And so her bag business was born. Opening a store on London’s Walton Street, she soon turned her attentions to design, and these days her bags are stocked all over the world and carried by some of the most fashionable and well-known women, such as Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon, Margaret Thatcher and Madonna.
Describing her brand as “British, humorous and bespoke”, Anya places a huge emphasis on quality and craftsmanship and this has been carried on through to her collections of footwear, luggage and ready-to-wear. She has been called upon to design gift bags for the Vanity Fair Oscar’s party three times but what she may be best known for, is her limited-edition “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” totes, created to bring awareness to wasted plastic bags – they had 80,000 people queuing up in one day in the UK alone, caused a “scrum” of shopping hysteria in Beijing and spurred people to sell them for ridiculous amounts on eBay.
