It wasn’t even the point of the exercise. In fact, it was beside the point. But women kept asking Tracy Dyer the same thing again and again: why don’t big retailers have decent laptop bags?
Dyer was working for an electronics retail giant, conducting focus groups with women about how they would feel having tech installers in their homes. Instead, she was gaining valuable insight about something else entirely. As a member of the company’s innovation group, she took the request to suppliers. “I kept asking them to make better bags for women that were fashionable and functional. They kept coming back with modified diaper bags. They were really into ballistic nylon. They would tell me, ‘this bag can withstand a bullet being shot at close range.’ My response was, ‘if you’re getting shot at by a bullet at close range, then you have bigger issues than your laptop.’ So I decided to go about figuring out how to do it, how to make a line of laptop bags on my own.”
Dyer spent time in Italy learning about leather manufacturing and designed her first line. But, it was too expensive — “the laptop bags started costing more than the laptops” — especially when the economy cratered. More importantly, she was turned off by the toxicity of the leather-making process. “I started thinking that there must be a way to make a fabric that looks good, but is sustainable and is doing things the right way. I started researching eco-friendly and found that there is really fantastic fabric can be made out of recycled water bottles.” She started sketching designs on paper and, using contacts recommended to her, found partners who could engineer and manufacture the bags.
“It was a little a bit scary to take the leap,” Dyer says, but she planned carefully and had the feeling she could always go back to the corporate world. The bags have struck such a chord that she doesn’t have to.
Photos by Shawl Schwarz & Christina Kelvin
It wasn’t even the point of the exercise. In fact, it was beside the point. But women kept asking Tracy Dyer the same thing again and again: why don’t big retailers have decent laptop bags?
Dyer was working for an electronics retail giant, conducting focus groups with women about how they would feel having tech installers in their homes. Instead, she was gaining valuable insight about something else entirely. As a member of the company’s innovation group, she took the request to suppliers. “I kept asking them to make better bags for women that were fashionable and functional. They kept coming back with modified diaper bags. They were really into ballistic nylon. They would tell me, ‘this bag can withstand a bullet being shot at close range.’ My response was, ‘if you’re getting shot at by a bullet at close range, then you have bigger issues than your laptop.’ So I decided to go about figuring out how to do it, how to make a line of laptop bags on my own.”
Dyer spent time in Italy learning about leather manufacturing and designed her first line. But, it was too expensive — “the laptop bags started costing more than the laptops” — especially when the economy cratered. More importantly, she was turned off by the toxicity of the leather-making process. “I started thinking that there must be a way to make a fabric that looks good, but is sustainable and is doing things the right way. I started researching eco-friendly and found that there is really fantastic fabric can be made out of recycled water bottles.” She started sketching designs on paper and, using contacts recommended to her, found partners who could engineer and manufacture the bags.
“It was a little a bit scary to take the leap,” Dyer says, but she planned carefully and had the feeling she could always go back to the corporate world. The bags have struck such a chord that she doesn’t have to.
Photos by Shawl Schwarz & Christina Kelvin
You must be logged in to post a comment.