Jo Luping Cork Fabric Bag

Adjustable, reversible bag made with sustainable, recycled materials! Designed in New Zealand by Jo Luping Design.

Fold-over bags with adjustable strap featuring stylised New Zealand designs by Jo Luping. The bag can be worn extended or folded over depending on how much you want to carry. This makes it a highly versatile bag for all your daily needs. The adjustable shoulder strap is a durable cotton canvas, 30mm wide x 1 metre long at full length, with cork stitched on top. The strap is removable and fastens to each side of the bag with quality heavy duty brass coloured hardware.

Each side of the bag upper has a different print, which then shows a different design once folded over.

Cream cotton lining. Finished with a kraft swing tag attached with twine, showing product information.

Bag size: 280mm wide x 300mm high when extended (11 x 12 inches approx), and 280mm wide x 180mm high when folded over. Fits a standard sized tablet, or iPad, when not folded.

There are two types of fabrics for the cork & linen fold-over bag. The first fabric is cork fabric, also known as cork leather. It has a cork surface and the reverse is made of RPET-TC fabric. Cork fabric/leather comes from the bark of the cork oak tree and can thus be harvested repeatedly, as the bark re-grows easily without damaging the tree - which makes it a truly sustainable material. The cork materials are imported from Portugal. The production consists of gluing thin sheets of natural cork to various backings, the gluing process uses a water-based glue and is free of formaldehyde and azo which can cause environmental or health damage. RPET-TC is made of upcycled plastic bottles.

The second fabric is imitation linen fabric, which is also made from upcycled plastic bottles. This fabric is a two-layer type, with a linen-like surface and a flannel reverse. The two-layer design provides strength and a soft feel.

About Jo Luping

Jo Luping studied printmaking and photography at the Otago Fine Art School, then film-making and design at Wellington’s Victoria University. She established her studio in 1996 and became renowned for her ceramics, which capture New Zealand’s coastal landforms and indigenous flora and fauna. Jo is inspired by the Japanese aesthetic “wabi-sabi”. The characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetic include simple elegance, intimacy, modesty and suggest a natural process.