As anyone who carries a bag knows, it can be tricky to balance function and fashion just right; a stylish bag can fall open inconveniently, and a practical one can be blandly utilitarian. But Alice Yardley, who makes all the handbags at her eponymous shop on Washington Avenue in Portland, feels that all bags can be both beautiful and useful, especially if the future owner gets involved in the design process, as she encourages them to. “I have a couple of styles that I make consistently for the store, and all of them are based on patterns that I think are really cool. But for custom stuff, people will see what styles I make, and they’ll usually go from there,” says Yardley. “It’s fun to see what other people want and what other people think of as being their ideal bag.” 

A native of Portland, Yardley didn’t initially plan on a career working with leather. As she explains, “My undergrad was in art. I studied archeology and art history and all sorts of different things, but when I joined Teach for America, I was preselected to teach calculus! So I taught math for a couple of years and found I really liked teaching.” The experience led her to start a dedicated art department at an arts infusion school in New York City. She spent her days fostering her students’ creativity and her evenings trying to nurture her own. To do so, she gave up precious space in her “tiny, tiny studio apartment” for a sewing machine.

When it came to deciding what to sew on that machine, she recalls, the choice was easy. “I love accessories. I love shoes and bags, and I always have,” she says emphatically. “I wanted to have more of them for myself, so I just started making them. Then I started giving them to my friends and my siblings as gifts. After that, I thought, ‘You know, I really could sell these.’”

“I listened to tons of podcasts on how designers got started—there’s a cool one about Kate Spade, for example,” she continues. “Once I began listening to those, I started thinking about creating my studio in the same space as a retail shop back home in Portland. I wanted to do custom work and have people come in and choose their leather.”

Yardley’s vision for her business always included this interactive aspect. “People like to see and feel the leather. They like to meet the person in the shop making things for them,” she explains. She says that finding her spot in the Black Box, a business incubator on Washington Avenue, was a dream come true. “What better area to do it in? If someone’s walking around and they’re going to a brewery and want a bag, they can go have a beer and come back and it will be ready.” 

The space itself feels larger than it is, mostly because of the clever way Yardley has set it up. In the front, elegant, finished bags are displayed on clean pale walls and shelves, showcasing their crisp stitching and gleaming hardware. Toward the back of the shop sits an industrial sewing machine, threaded and ready to go; behind it, rolls of sweet-smelling leather piled up on the cutting table create a controlled riot of color and textures. Spilling out of boxes are the smaller scraps that Yardley treasures for making her signature multicolored bags (see sidebar, page 125). “I can forget what cool pieces I have, because every piece is so different!” she laughs. “For most people, their main focus will be either the color of the bag or the functionality of the bag. For me, it’s fun to start from either point. But with color, it’s great because I can go through everything that I have and just pull pieces of leather in that color palette.” 

Sustainability has been at the heart of Yardley’s work since she first began making bags in her apartment in Brooklyn. “It was originally something I needed to do because I didn’t have money to both start a business and also buy leather,” she recalls. “I went to a bunch of upholsterers who would give me old leather cushions from couches that I would take apart. I would find tiny little scraps, and I could find so many colors and so many textures. All these places would say, ‘Okay, just give me ten dollars and you can have this massive bag filled with leather.’” She estimates that her current production uses 50 percent remnant leather, and she relishes using these odds and ends to make her bags: “I started doing it out of necessity, and then I liked it so much that I kept doing it. I try to use every last scrap of the leather. It makes it fun because then I create all these new things that I hadn’t thought of before.” 

Fitting the pieces together to make something unexpected and beautiful seems like it’s not just Yardley’s recipe for handbags but also her overall philosophy. “You know, I’ve always seen bags as an opportunity. Why are people getting dressed in the morning thinking so hard about what they’re going to wear, and then they pick up the same bag every morning? I just do not understand it,” she muses. “It’s such a chance for a little burst of creativity or a little burst of whimsy or a little burst of color.” Every day, in other words, is a new chance for that personal ideal bag to shine.  

This Is Clutch

Yardley seems to have the entire spectrum of the rainbow in leather form in her shop. She says, “I try to choose the brightest and most fun pieces I can find. I mean, why carry a black bag every day when you can have electric blue, or cream, or peach?” Here are some of Yardley’s fun options for varying the colors and shapes in your bag wardrobe.

Envelope clutches, just big enough to hold credit cards, a phone, and some lipstick, are one of the most enduring items she makes. “Probably nothing that is currently in the store now is what I had when I opened, with the exception of these,” says Yardley. “I think they’re just so fun because you can have six of them and you will use them all, and they’re just a classic shape. Very simple hardware closure.”

“These larger everyday saddlebags are also a top seller,” continues Yardley. “People love a big bag—you could put a decent amount of stuff in there, a large wallet and a little makeup case.” The saddlebags often incorporate two or more shades of leather, making matching them to outfits a breeze.

There are also several dopp kits to choose from. “I’ve done these for groomsman wedding favors,” says Yardley. “There are these trends where you do a proposal box for your bridesmaids or groomsmen asking them to be in your wedding.” 

An entire section of Yardley’s wall space holds a collection of small multicolored bags. “These are color-blocked mini bags, which are very in fashion right now; I made them just big enough to hold a large iPhone, with a long enough handle where you can just hang it on your arm and be hands free,” explains Yardley. “They’re really fun to put together. These are all remnants of different pieces, and I love coming up with the color combinations. The best part is watching people look at the wall and say, ‘Okay, this one,’ and then they’ll put it down, and they’ll pick up another one. They’ll go through every single one of them and finally say, ‘Well, I don’t know which one I want, because they’re all so colorful, and they look so cool together!’”