Inside Anya Hindmarch’s sustainable fashion revolution: after the iconic ‘I am not a plastic bag’ with celebrity fans like Keira Knightley and Reese Witherspoon, she’s back with The Universal Bag

Aug 1 , 2022

UK designer Anya Hindmarch has taken fashion’s unsustainable footprint to heart with initiatives like her 2020 “I am not a plastic bag” tote made from 32 half-litre recycled plastic bottles. Photo: Anya Hindmarch

Anya Hindmarch has helped drastically reduce Britain’s plastic bag use with her canvas tote and continues to innovate towards genuine zero-waste fashion

The Universal Bag is popular already in supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, and has just added Hong Kong’s City’super to its list of global suppliers

In 2007, more than 80,000 people clamoured outside Sainsbury’s supermarkets across the UK for the instantly iconic “I am not a plastic bag” canvas tote – even though it had a production run of less than a quarter that number. In Taiwan, similar stampedes even sent 30 people to the hospital. The bag’s US$6 (£5) price tag soon multiplied 60-fold, with counterfeits fetching even more in some cases.

Inspired by the bestselling book Change the World for a Fiver, the limited-run tote was somewhat ironically aimed at replacing the excessive use of single-use plastic bags at supermarkets and soon found itself slung on the shoulders of Keira Knightley, Lily Allen and Reese Witherspoon. In the years since, the annual number of plastic bags used in the UK slumped from an estimated 10.6 billion in 2006 to 6.1 billion in 2010, according to the British Retail Consortium. In 2015, a plastic bag levy was introduced in the country.

UK designer Anya Hindmarch is leading a trend in sustainable fashion. Photo: Anya Hindmarch

Behind such seismic shifts in sustainability is UK designer Anya Hindmarch, whose green ethos has moved supermarkets like Sainsbury’s, Waitrose – and as of last month – Hong Kong’s City’super with her The Universal Bag. Made of upcycled plastic, her latest brainchild comes with a 10-year warranty and a prepaid return option to its London headquarters for recycling. Unlike her previous totes, The Universal Bag is designed for more than just grocery shopping.

“Bags for life are not the answer: it seems like the noble next step from plastic bags, but in reality people take one every two weeks, and most of the time it’s not recycled,” says Hindmarch. “Ensuring something that’s 100 per cent recyclable is a challenge, but the No 1 is making something desirable, that people want to reuse. That’s half of the problem.”

Having run her eponymous label since 1987 – when she was only 18 years old – the London-based designer is known for her bespoke accessories such as bags printed with customers’ photographs, embossed with their drawings or messages in their own handwriting, as well as embroidered monograms. Last year, she extended her fashion footprint to a cafe, hair salon and more with The Village, a clutch of five shops in Knightsbridge, London.

The Universal Bag is the latest iteration of Anya Hindmarch’s reusable shopping bag concept, made with upcycled plastic. Photo: Anya Hindmarch

With retail pieces that can be priced at upwards of US$1,100, Hindmarch’s fight against plastic on the back of a US$6 supermarket tote 15 years ago didn’t come naturally, especially given the hefty expenses incurred in research and in setting up the manufacturing.

Humans are such idiots, what are we doing wrong?

Anya Hindmarch

“I don’t really care [about cost]. I passionately care that we do the right thing. In the early days, when people didn’t understand sustainability, they were coming to the bag for the wrong reasons. But if a part of the message has changed their behaviour, then buy it,” she says, adding that her reward is knowing that every tote bag bought means less plastic destined for the landfill.

In 2020, version two of the “I am not a plastic bag” tote was launched highlighting a cotton, canvas-feel fabric created from 32 half-litre recycled plastic bottles, again designed to be kept forever. Hindmarch commemorated the debut during that year’s London Fashion Week by shutting her shops in the capital and filling them with 90,000 recycled plastic bottles – the number bought globally every six seconds.