Introducing Harper the Label

Claire Harper has always been an artist at heart. But it wasn't until a few years ago after taking some courses in pattern making and graphic design at Apparel Arts in Oakland and UC Berkeley Extension that the idea for her line of leather handbags came into focus.

Harper the Label officially launched in November of last year. Harper, the designer, kicked off 2021 by winning a Mini-Grant from FiSF (congrats!). One of two winners selected from 22 applicants, Harper was awarded a $500 cash grant, a one-on-one consulting session with Executive Director Rachel Fischbein, a Patreon subscription and this very feature/photoshoot.

Crafted of leather hailing from European tanneries and manufactured in a small NYC factory, Harper's core collection features three simple silhouettes: a crossbody, clutch and backpack. Each effortless beauty is available in a trio of un-boring neutral shades (black, walnut and saddle) and embossed with Harper's original poetry.

Whether hidden on the back of the bag or underside of the strap, the prose is akin to carrying around a little secret. One of our favorite lines appears on The Wildest Part Backpack: "Guard the wildest part of your heart, the part that finds possibility in shadows and is always hunting."

The inspiration for adding embossed verse to her bag babies came from an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "There was a chainmail shirt whose links were woven to spell out the prayer to Ali. I thought there was something so powerful about wearing words as protection going into battle, potentially into the last experience of your life. I began to think about language as a talisman…cultures all over the world use words like this, from voodoo to Jewish traditions. The poetry design element is especially interesting as something that is just for the wearer, not really to be seen by other people. I try not to limit myself to any particular media, and I’ve been writing poetry for a long time so this felt like a natural combination of a few sides of myself," Harper explains.

As to how Harper, who has been sewing clothes since she was a teen, got into leatherworking? A year after graduating college where she studied art and Italian, Harper apprenticed with a leather studio in Brooklyn. She fell hard: "Working with leather is both more painstaking and more elemental than working with fabric. And it feels incredibly sculptural to me: I love the process of moving from a flat design on a hide to something that has weight, volume and shape," she says.

Along with an emphasis on craftsmanship and a subtly sculptural design aesthetic, a strong commitment to people and the planet is an integral part of Harper the Label's DNA.

"My goals were to bring a more transparent and ethical vision to the leather industry, which is notoriously opaque. I noticed that people (including myself) were paying more attention to sustainability and fashion’s impact on the planet. Beyond being just a buzzword, it felt important to be able to back up my sustainability claims with real metrics. As a consumer, it’s important to me to support women-owned businesses that are considering the impact of their work, and I figured I couldn’t be the only one who thought that way."

To this end, Harper clarified five principles of ethical fashion that she wanted her business to address—clean leather, fair labor, sustainable packaging, carbon offsetting, and inclusive hiring and marketing practices. And so far, the East Bay resident and onetime window-display artist, ad-agency studio manager and sample coordinator is off to a great start: 

1. All the leather comes from the Leather Working Group, an international collective of tanneries that have achieved or surpassed environmental benchmarks for the industry. "The leather I use is certified chrome-free meaning that it's tanned with organic matter like leaves, bark, and seed pods not industrial chemicals like arsenic and chromium, which are used in 80 to 90 percent of leather available right now and are definitively linked to detrimental human health and environmental effects," explains Harper.

2. She works with a small U.S. workshop to produce her designs: "I really believe that establishing a fair relationship based on skilled labor is a key to sustainable production," Harper says.

3. She's making sustainable packaging choices, including using cotton dust bags and compostable packaging tape printed with soy ink.

4. Working with Terrapass, the designer offsets the carbon in her supply chain as much as she can. "This will never be a perfect solution, but at least it’s a start: I attempt to estimate how much methane the cows produce in their lifetime and add that to the carbon emissions from the freight and domestic shipping of my products," she says.

5. Building an inclusive business from the beginning. Even though right now, she's mostly a one-woman-show, hiring and paying marginalized creatives is part of the plan. "And I don't partake in cultural appropriation," she adds. 

Like virtually every small business on the planet, Harper has been affected by the pandemic—from the cancelling of consumer-facing markets (a la West Coast Craft and Echo Park Craft Fair) she was planning to attend to having difficulty cutting through all the visual clutter and content on social media that's only increased since the coronavirus came around.

Even still, Harper is optimistic about the future: "In the short-term, I’m designing a few more pieces to add to my core collection, which I’m envisioning as an ongoing, seasonless collection of designs in my three, go-to neutral colors.

I’m also working on some limited-edition collaborations with other brands and artists, which I’m really excited about. It will be a fun way to inject some newness and different aesthetics into my assortment," she says.