ABOUT

Ginger and Brown sells simple handcrafted bags made in beautiful materials.

Take them on walks, pack them with work stuff, cart kit to the beach, load with belongings. They're made to be used and to be loved.

The beginnings: Ginger & Brown’s journey began when I was 6. I had just started learning to sew - taught by my seamstress mother who used to design dresses for the Leicester clothing factory run by my grandparents. While my mother stitched at her Singer sewing machine at home, I sat on the rug beside her, cutting out pieces of felt and the scraps of fabric that dropped to the floor and began my present trade of making bags.

I made a lot of bags.

Then I grew up and left home, moved to London and had a 26 year career in journalism and did a few other things like having babies. That lasted until 2010, when I decided I needed a change from sitting at a computer - I needed to sit at a sewing machine too. I carried on writing, but started giving sewing lessons to teenagers, and then, without really thinking about it, I slowly drifted back to my roots - stitching at my machine and making bags. The main difference this time was that I swapped cheap 1970s felt for soft, supple leathers.

Since then, I haven't stopped.

Today, each Ginger and Brown bag is made to order, cut and stitched in my sunny work studio on the South coast of England.