Vee Collective: sneakers among handbags

AFirst there was a conversation with the client. Lili Radu was in Los Angeles with her partner Patrick Loewe to sell her brand Lili Radu leather bags at Bloomingdale’s. “I place great importance on communication with customers and feedback on the sales floor,” says the entrepreneur and designer at a meeting in Berlin. Many complained to her about the loss of goods: “They were all looking for a light shopper.” Radu found that it didn’t work very well on skin. The material itself adds too much weight. “So why not rethink the whole concept,” her partner suggested. This is how the idea of ​​a second bag brand was born: VeeCollective. So the couple turned their attention to lightweight, large bags for the modern woman.

The model was the French company Longchamp, which no one could ignore when it came to buyers for several decades. Radu looked at how the French did it. Couldn’t this be more modern? “And we wanted to make it as sustainable as possible,” says Löwe. “With Lili Radu, we have already ensured that the leather is environmentally tanned and dyed.” Now everything was about to become even more innovative.

Recycled and Leatherless

This is how shoppers were made from lightweight nylon material, more intended for jackets. For example, the spacious Caba bag is made from recycled bomber fabric. “No one had ever put this material into a bag line before,” Radu says. Patrick Löwe, responsible for materials in product development, spent a long time searching for something suitable and of the desired quality. They also wanted to switch more to recycled materials. Now they do without leather for trim parts.

The result of all these considerations is an extremely lightweight bag that feels as soft to the touch as plastic is rare. “Some clients told me that they even slept on it on the train,” Lili Radu laughs happily. “These are the two components that VeeCollective stands for: recycled materials that are part of today’s world and that we bring to the attention of the modern woman.” , with her work and a few things for the children. For all this, she needs space and, above all, a system with which she can find small things with one hand. Will all this fit in one bag?

Lily Radu shows off a classic, the cross-stitch Vee bag. It opens a large zipper and reveals the interior: a padded compartment for a 16-inch laptop, internal compartments for all sorts of small items, most of which are locked, partly made of mesh and therefore visible, partly made of hard plastic so keys cannot be locked. fall out. There’s an extra mini bag for keeping things organized, as well as a shoulder strap if you’re cycling or need to quickly run to the train and don’t want to hold a shopper in your hand. “Everything is also water-repellent,” says Radu. “It’s essentially a sneaker among handbags,” says Löwe.

They met in Italy through mutual friends and have been working together for almost ten years. That’s how long they’ve been married. Is it possible to intertwine personal and professional lives so closely? “At first we gave ourselves a trial period,” says Löwe. Two years later they realized that things were going well. “At the beginning we tried to follow some rules, for example: from now on we will no longer talk about work. Or: “If there are children there, it should not be related to business.” But they quickly rejected the offer because they were both too passionate about the company. “It’s just fun that we do it this way,” Loewe says. The company is like a “third child” next to two biological ones.

And it’s still growing. The range is always updated with limited special collections, for example in collaboration with Toni Garrn and her foundation for young women of Africa or, as this summer, with American fitness trainer Tracy Anderson. Not only does it help Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham and Olivia Wilde have bodies to admire on stage, runway or screen. She also had some ideas about what her ideal gym bag would look like. Together with Lili Radu, a shopper was created that offers special solutions for female athletes, for example with two additional cargo compartments. After all, VeeCollective claims to offer the world’s lightest bag – so you can carry a lot of heavy luggage with you.