Making bag with interior light since 2009
Who, when and why light bags?
It all started around 2009 with Dani and Lluís. Already immersed in the economic crisis, our future work was in danger and we wanted to make a change.
Long-time friends and sound technicians, we often talked about building something in a professional field different from our own.
One of the few things we were clear about was that we wanted to create something tangible, some kind of product designed, made and sold by ourselves. We wanted to carry out a project in which we would have control of each of the steps and thus be able to project our personality on it.
We had no idea what type of product it would be but we wanted its value to go beyond the economic cost, we wanted it to be a sum of arguments that would give weight to the brand for which we also didn't have a name. We thought in a very utopian way about everything that surrounded our ideas.
We wanted from the design to the final sale, passing through the dozens of previous steps, to be processes that took into account the essence of our romantic ideas about the value that things should have. That all the people involved valued the product beyond what it ended up being, that they ended up valuing the brand for its DNA.
We have always been very curious about new technologies and in 2009, after some time thinking about the possible applications of different smart fabrics, the idea of illuminating the inside of bags arose. The first thing we did was look for similar products on the market and seeing that nothing similar existed and, since we wanted to create something of our own, different from what could be found everywhere, we decided that this would be our goal.
We were very naive and we will not deny that we thought that the idea was so good that everything would be very simple.
Very very naive!
The evolution
We soon realized that an idea is not everything no matter how good it may seem, execution is always the key. In this case we must give thanks to the naivety that allowed us to continue moving forward since starting something like this, with absolutely no notion of anything, is truly crazy.
"Very good! Light inside the bags, but what bags? Your own or someone else's bags? Big or small? What shape of bags? For men or women? What materials? ...” The truth is that thinking about the countless questions that arose is really overwhelming.
We started by buying a sewing machine that we didn't even know how to put the needle on, we recycled our personal computers and found a place to start practicing. We showed up at technology centers or potential suppliers empty-handed saying, “Hello, we want to make bags with light!” (they should think we were crazy).
We were helped by family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers whom we either liked or in whom we perhaps aroused a feeling of pity (we still remember some of the faces they had given us when explaining our ideas).
We believe that a very important part of the beginning of this journey was ignorance and the total lack of fear of the unknown, our way of processing was the following; “if people close their businesses, we will have more opportunities”, “if companies relocate production, we will do it at home and we will have controlled quality”, “if in the world of handbags there is no innovation, we will apply it everywhere top". We had positive answers to all the logical reasoning.
With very few resources but with a lot of drive and a total "do-it-yourself" spirit, we began a very long path of learning in a lot of different disciplines, we went from editing audio tracks and connecting cables to sewing and cutting fabrics. Making mistakes and rectifying, adapting and continually training, we shaped what Babau is today.