Five years ago, Jessie Wong was a Wellington fashion student frustrated that she couldn't find a leather handbag big enough to fit all of her essentials.
This week, she won a Women of Influence Business Enterprise award for helming the popular leather-goods brand Yu Mei.
Jessie Wong Photo: supplied
Wong tells Kathryn Ryan she started tinkering around with bag design when she couldn’t find one that fit her lunchbox and laptop.
"[Every larger-sized bag] on the market at the time was a canvas tote or a sports backpack.”
She started looking at bags through the lens of functionality.
“[I asked myself] what do the women around me need? What do the people who are going to work every day or starting a new job as a lawyer or a freelancer need?”
The integrity of a bag's material is important, too, Wong says.
“We work with a really beautiful deer nappa which is incredibly soft. It is a by-product of the New Zealand venison industry, it’s a beautiful product. The reason why it's so great for handbags is because it's the perfect hybrid between lambskin, which is beautifully soft, and cowhide, which has the strength to carry your laptop, the kitchen sink, everything you need for a weekend.”
Yu Mei bags are designed in New Zealand and manufactured at "an amazing factory in Dongguan China" close to Wong's family village.
"They are top of their game - best in the world. And it's been really exciting to work with them to such a high level of manufacturing that's just absolutely beautiful. [Our producers are] a family-run business, they've been around for forever, and they just take such pride in the craftsmanship of their work.”
The brand is committed to sustainability, she says.
“That has really been ingrained since the beginning. The deer nappa is of course waste material that has been taken out of that waste cycle and turned into beautiful products.
“And I think because we did make all of those bags at the beginning and every scrap of leather was so important, we've really tried to put an emphasis and a focus on really good care for leather.”
Yu Mei also has a buy-back scheme, Wong says.
“If you have looked after your bag really well across its lifetime, and you no longer have a need in your life for that particular product you can bring it back to us.
"We'll refurbish it in-house and we'll sell it on to someone else who can enjoy it. So the end of your journey with a handbag is not the end of its journey.”
Yu Mei has 3 stores, 16 employees and 37 stockists across Australasia.
