Leather bags from Yu Mei’s AW19 collection. Image supplied.
Wellington-based leather accessories brand Yu Mei recently previewed their stunning new Autumn/Winter 2019 collection which features a range of covetable pieces. Founder and director Jessie Wong designs functional but luxurious bags and her eye for elegant style has seen her label rise rapidly in popularity since launching in late 2015.
“At Yu Mei, we’re dedicated to the creation of understated luxury. When we design we focus on building from a base level of utility to suit a modern woman, she’s ambitious, focused, driven, intelligent and carries her life in her bag,” Jessie Wong. “We not only make our customer the inspiration for our products, but we include her in every aspect of the design process along the way. Our bags are designed with purpose, to carry with ease, bearing in mind our design ethos that ‘simplicity is complexity resolved'”.
Yu Mei’s upcoming collection for Autumn/Winter 2019 is inspired by the ‘uniform of the modern women’, and features a range of carefully considered pieces that are modern and clean. They’re offered in a beautiful colour palette of sage, sand, burgundy and black which is to reflect the femininity and strength of today’s women.
Sure to be a sell-out for next season is the 2/6 Vi Bag which is the hero piece of this new collection. Which the brand describes in their lookbook as ‘A bag for the spirited ladies, ready to take you dancing right through till 6am. An independent thinker living on the spicy side of life’. Jessie names each of her bags after friends, family members or people close to the brand and the Vi Bag is a particularly special one for the designer.
“The Vi Bag is named after my great-grandmother, Violet. Vi was ahead of her time – she wore pants, smoked from a long cigarette holder and skulked around with artists,” says Jessie Wong. “Toward the end of her life, Vi said that her only regret ‘was not going to the parties she missed’, so we created a party bag in her honour. She holds your wallet, keys, phone and lipstick, and hopefully, never misses a party. I never met Vi but I hope she’d get a kick out of having a bag named after her.”
Yu Mei’s stunning collections are a perfect combination of smart design and hand craftsmanship with each bag made from premium deer napa from a South Island Tannery, respected internationally for 40 years of expert tanning. The level of craftsmanship is such that every deer leather passes through 35 artisans before it reaches its final state. Each bag is beautifully finished and stamped with Yu Mei’s gold embossed logo.
Yu Mei’s AW19 collection will be available in stores and online from February 2019.
Images supplied.