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Fatima in the studio with an orange Bags With Legs bag

Vienna · Handmade from the heart · Since 2017

We Did Your Bag!

We make bags and empower women with our work. At Bags With Legs, women are appreciated for their talent and background — every story is heard and woven into our socially conscious brand. It's not just passion for sensational design and products, it's about the meaningful stories behind them.

We have long-time experience in creating things. We really do believe that creation comes first from the heart and the mind — the hands are there to manifest all the beautiful things we create at Bags With Legs.

A woman framed by the arm of an antique Singer sewing machine, in black and white
Vintage photograph of women at treadle sewing machines
Handwork Lineage Women at their treadle machines in Transylvania. One of them, in the middle, is Anna — the grandmother of our founder. The handwork goes back generations, and it is not stopping with us.

Transylvania

Project creator Annamaria is cosmopolitan and polyglot, committed to creating an outstanding social project at Bags With Legs. She is originally from the Hungarian minority in Transylvania and grew up under communist dictatorship in Romania.

Her experience growing up in a tough environment, with censorship and real-life struggles, in a family where sewing, creating and making handmade clothes was part of life, adds to Bags With Legs' power and creativity.

The revival of good old handmade things is an essential human added value to Bags With Legs — endless creativity, and making the very best from very little. Her professional background is in journalism, design and advertising.

Deeply impressed by the situation of so many women with refugee backgrounds registered at the AMS with a work permit, looking for work and struggling to adapt to a new life situation, she got the idea of founding a label where women could be supported with work experience and job opportunities.

Bags With Legs celebrates sisterhood and creativity by producing and selling handmade bags in a socially conscious way.

“We did not have many things, and we had to create them. So what Bags With Legs does, is make amazing things with few resources.”

Annamaria
Annamaria at her studio worktable with leather and drawings
Annamaria at the worktable

The name

The bags are big — when a woman carries one, it can look as if her legs belong to the bag. And every bag exists so that the woman who made it can stand on her own two legs.

The name means the legs of all these women from a very hard background, who can become independent the moment they have a space where they can grow, be seen, be appreciated.

Annamaria
The bag, walking.

The training

In cooperation with the AMS, women with refugee and migrant backgrounds join the atelier for about three months. Not just a sewing course — the whole life of a small label:

  1. Cut and sew

    A pocket, a pattern, a whole bag.

  2. Design

    Develop own ideas and make them real.

  3. Meet the customer

    The shop, the conversation, selling your own work.

  4. Work independently

    Handle the everyday challenges of a working atelier.

“Many of them had to adapt their whole lives. Here it’s about finding yourself and developing.”

Annamaria
Annamaria and a maker checking a piece at the sewing machine
In the training programme

The women with legs

#walkproudtoday

The name is theirs. These are the women who trained here or who make the bags today — each with the superpower we know her for.

  • Seda Tisaeva outdoors with a Bags With Legs clutch under her arm

    Seda Tisaeva

    From Chechnya

    Finished fashion school in Vienna — sewing bags was the natural next step.

    Her kind heart and her aesthetic sensibility.

  • Mominah Aldawamni at the Bags With Legs market stand, bags hanging behind her

    Mominah Aldawamni

    From Syria · the first employee

    Studied economics in Syria; walked into the shop and asked if help was needed.

    Her sewing skills, her patience and making dolls.

  • Sumaya Shaker with her arms folded in the atelier, rolls of leather behind her

    Sumaya Shaker

    Kurdish, from Syria

    Her first training after arriving in Vienna.

    Her incredible motivation and willingness to learn.

  • Asilla Wase smiling beside a Singer sewing machine in the atelier

    Asilla Wase

    From Mazar, Afghanistan · hired

    Learned to sew very young; now makes the bags alongside Annamaria.

    Multitasking talent and sharp intelligence.

  • Laura Kadiewa in a portrait, wearing a grey headscarf and a gold face covering

    Laura Kadiewa

    From Chechnya

    Came with solid sewing skills; learned how a small label runs — to one day open her own atelier.

    Her strong energy and kindness.

  • Fahima Sadat wearing a printed Bags With Legs belt bag in front of a mural

    Fahima Sadat

    From Afghanistan

    A teacher back home; sews all the dresses for her sisters.

    Her ability of never giving up and her intelligence.

  • Asal Huseini holding a finished black bag at her sewing machine

    Asal Huseini

    Afghan origins, grew up in Iran

    Excellent sewing abilities, training at the atelier.

    Her precision in work and her calm energy.

  • Annamaria Tolvaly working alongside a maker at the shop worktable

    Annamaria Tolvaly

    From Transylvania · founder

    Learned to sew from her mother and grandmother; speaks seven languages; founded the label in 2017. Shown with Asilla, who makes the bags alongside her.

    Making the very best from very little.

The Bags With Legs team in the studio with their bags
The name, in one picture.

The leather

Every bag is made from deadstock — leftover leather the industry set aside — with European fabrics and buckles. Nothing is overproduced: small series and one-of-a-kind pieces, about six hours of handwork for a small bag and eight for a large one.

Universal stories woven into European materials, by migrant women — because we all come from different places, but we all stand on common ground.

See how a bag is made

The mission

“Our goal is to strengthen women and give them the chance to stand on their own two legs.”

Annamaria

In the news

Press

VIENNA BASED URBAN BAG LABEL

We make bags by hand, in small series, together with women with refugee and migrant backgrounds.

Everything happens in one Neubau room: the leather, the machines, the training, the counter.

Come by and watch your next bag being made.

#walkproudtoday

Shop the bags Visit the atelier