The bag is made of vegan leather, carries a simple T logo and was designed to look like a department store shopping bag. When Telfar Clemens launched it in 2014, few people predicted that it would become one of the hardest accessories to buy in America, selling out within minutes of every restock.
Liberia and Queens
Clemens was born in New York to Liberian parents and spent part of his childhood in Liberia before growing up in Queens. He founded his label, Telfar, in 2005, while studying at Pace University in New York.
“Not for you, for everyone”
Telfar’s slogan is “Not for you, for everyone.” From the start, Clemens designed unisex clothes and accessories and kept prices relatively affordable compared with luxury brands. He wanted his work to be available to the people who inspired it rather than only to a wealthy elite.
The Shopping Bag
The Shopping Bag, inspired by the brown paper bags of Bloomingdale’s department store, comes in several sizes and many colours. It became known as the “Bushwick Birkin”, a playful comparison with the famously expensive Hermès Birkin, named after a Brooklyn neighbourhood associated with young creative people.
The CFDA prize
In 2017, Clemens won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, which came with prize money to grow his business. He used it to scale up production of the bag. He later won CFDA awards for American Accessories Designer of the Year.
The year of Telfar
In 2020, demand for the bag exploded. The New York Times called 2020 “the year of Telfar.” Celebrities and politicians carried it, and resale prices climbed far above retail. To fight bots and resellers, Telfar launched a “Bag Security Program” allowing customers to pre-order bags within a window.
Liberia at the Olympics
In 2021, Telfar designed the uniforms for Liberia’s team at the Tokyo Olympics, a project that connected the designer directly to his parents’ country.
A Black-owned brand
Telfar’s success has been celebrated as an example of a Black-owned, independent fashion brand reaching the mainstream on its own terms, without being bought by a luxury group.
Inclusive fashion
Telfar’s unisex approach and its embrace of queer and Black communities made the brand a symbol for many young people who felt excluded by luxury fashion. Its shows and campaigns featured friends, artists and people from Clemens’s community.
Luxury brands sell scarcity. Telfar built demand by promising the opposite, a bag for everyone, and then struggled to make enough of them. It is a problem most fashion houses would love to have.
