Simple and classic, elegant yet modern, Unitude is the high quality yet well-priced handbag company that will have you wanting their whole collection! Created in 2015, this swanky brand is a favorite of It Girls and fashionistas alike, and comes in a variety of styles and colors to take you from jetsetting like a #BossBabe to grabbing a coffee at your fave neighborhood spot! LAFM sat don with the creators and designers of Unitude to learn more about these beautifully crafted handbags, and why they’re such a hot ticket! Check out the exclusive interview below!
LAFM: The Unitude Collection is simple and classic styles that can work for any girl, for any occasion-can you tell us the story behind creating the brand?
Unitude: Unitude is our reply to the wants and needs of the younger generation with a clash and fusion of a multitude of influences and contemplations. The millennials are facing pressures like college debt, job market competition, identity recognition and more, and what they want is not just a million-dollar luxury purse or a photo-friendly, Instagram-only handbag. There aren’t so many choices when it comes to bags that meet their requirement of expression and utility.
Here at Unitude, we are heavily influenced by modern artists and architects like Morandi, Monet, Gaudí, and Gropius to name a few. Modernism, Impressionism and Bauhaus are the responses of these masters to their time period. We believe that you don’t have to choose between classic and trendy, minimal and elegant. We try to fold the spectrum and blend both ends! The marriage between the abstraction of lines, shapes, colors and empathy for the new age is Unitude’s take on the unity of form and function.
LAFM: Amazing! We love that your handbags are inspired by classical art and architecture movements! Can you also tell us about the design process that goes into developing each collection and making each bag by hand?
Unitude: At Unitude, we try to bring the aesthetic or practical aspects of the design together. The aesthetic inspirations usually come from the works of modern artists and architects, even musicians. We deconstruct the works and abstract visual elements for our design, like colors and shapes. More importantly we internalize the core concept of the works, like-to comfort, to enjoy, to encourage. We believe that a limited palette and material set will only boost creativity, not depress it, so we intend to put constraints on our design elements-to let the pieces remain sleek and simple.
After sketching the designs, paper and fabric prototypes are made to get a real-life idea of the bags. At this stage, we make adjustments or discard the idea if it didn’t work out. If we really like it, it moves on to the next stage. We always evaluate the designs with leather prototypes because we believe that testing with the exact material of the final product gives you the most accurate feedback. We really work with our customers in mind. We carry around the bag for a couple of weeks and look for any uncomfortable edges, unreachable pouches, any parts that get in the way when you unzip the bag, or unintentional tilts caused by suboptimal weight distribution. If we find anything wrong, we go back and make further tweaks until we are pleased with the design.
LAFM: Unitude is a favorite of some of the top fashionistas and fashion bloggers, can you elaborate on the success the brand has had so far?
Unitude: Unitude was founded in 2015 and so far Unitude has more than 60,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook, and so far has been reported by fashion magazines including Nylon, Allure, and New York Magazine. Our customers are from over 30 countries. We truly love social media, it provides us an equal opportunity to get connected with people all over the world and present our designs and products to them. Our fans are willing to share their outfits online when carrying a Unitude bag, which has been amazing to see. We also repost their photos often on social media and in our newsletters, to let our other customers think of some new styling ideas! We see this as a very special bond between Unitude and its fans!
LAFM: And lastly, what can we expect from Unitude in the next year? Any exciting collections coming out soon?
Unitude: This Autumn there will be a brand new collection inspired by a modernist building designed by Antoni Gaudí, which we’re very excited to present. By drawing the inspiration from Gaudí’s architecture, we step outside the world of handbags while remaining in the fantasy world of Untiude. ‘Constant’ and ‘curved’ will both be notable elements in this modern and romantic collection!
Check out some of our fave looks below!
We know you’ll want to #getshopping after seeing these styles and reading this piece, so to shop until you practically drop, head here-but we’re warning you, once you start you may not be able to stop! To get in on the action even more, head to the ‘gram (@unitudeofficial) to check out more of this fab brand!
