O My Bag

O My Bag has long-standing, trusting relationships with their producers in India, including EMA, the Shee Sen Tannery, as well as new partners such as Mable Industries in Italy. To strengthen these relationships, the Dutch O My Bag team visits the production sites in India themselves.

The duration of the partnership varies from 20 years to 2 years, with O My Bag continuously evaluating whether the producer meets their quality requirements and social conditions.

According to the brand’s website, all factories are SA8000 certified. This certificate indicates that workers work in safe conditions and are paid a fair minimum wage. Moreover, the manufacturer EMA (Equitable Marketing Association) is a member of the World Fair Trade Organisation.

At O My Bag, the team strives to make a positive difference in the world through its handbags, and with success! The Dutch company says they are providing employment for 1004 fair jobs with their producers in India by 2023.

Finally, as of September 2021, the brand is a member of B‑Corp. B‑Corporation assesses the operation of companies on various aspects, including checking social conditions in the production process.

O My Bag uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to evaluate, optimise and make their production process more sustainable. In 2015, the Dutch brand even won the Sustainable Leather Awards, an award that highlights innovative ideas within the Dutch leather sector with a positive impact on people, animals & the environment.

Leather, especially vegetal-tanned leather, is a high-quality material that becomes more beautiful over time. This means that your O My Bag handbag or clutch gains character with time.

The high-quality leather of the handbags and wallets is vegetally tanned without the use of harmful chemicals such as chromium. O My Bag’s tanneries use special eco-friendly and natural procedures to ensure that no harmful substances end up in nature. To guarantee this, the Dutch brand only works with tanneries that have the LWG Gold or Silver certificate. LWG (Leather Working Group) monitors the production of these tanneries to check what processes and chemicals are used.

The inside of the wallets and handbags consists of GOTS or OCS certified organic cotton. Great! This way, the brand further avoids chemicals in the production of the bags. 

Yet, O My Bag also has areas for improvement, such as its chosen transport methods. According to the brand’s sustainability report released in 2023, a whopping 65% of transport took place via air transport the year before. Only 36% of transport within the production chain was done via ship freight. There is little information on packaging materials, both in the production chain and to consumers, as a result it is not clear whether the bags are wrapped in plastic.

The brand gives customers handy guidelines on how best to maintain your quality leather goods. Small defects or scratches in your leather? You can repair them yourself! On the O My Bag website, you will find videos showing exactly how to do so.

For larger repairs, the brand offers the option of having your bag repaired locally for free at your local repair shop, or you can send it to their head office for repair.

Are you in the mood for something new after a few years? Then you can also enjoy buying a pre-loved O My Bag item! Shop second-hand bags at a bargain price, or discover the fun bags with a little deviation. This is how the brand combats production waste.

According to their website, O My Bag has already given more than 1,600 bags a new life by 2023 thanks to the pre-loved project.

O My Bag is headquartered in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the production chain is quite spread out, with quite a few manufacturing partners based in Kolkata, India. The brand works with tanneries in Italy and India, after which the bags are assembled by various Indian production ateliers. 

Because the bags travel long distances, and are often brought by plane from India to the Netherlands, the brand does not score well on this topic.

O My Bag sells worldwide, so shipments sometimes travel long distances to get to customers from the Netherlands as well.

It is unclear where the hides for the leather come from, or what conditions the animals live in. So we cannot be sure that animal welfare was guaranteed.

O My Bag did recently expand their collection with a vegan collection made from Apple leather. These bags are completely vegan! 

Yet apple leather also has less good sides. The quality is often not as good as that of animal leather. Synthetic and natural materials are also mixed with each other, so the bags are not recyclable afterwards.

O My Bag is an established name in the world of timeless, minimalist handbags. The Dutch brand puts the properties of naturally tanned leather first. This allows your bag to evolve with your own style.

The collection features handbags, clutches, bum bags and wallets for men and women. Smaller items such as laptop sleeves, toiletry bags and card holders are also part of the collection. 

O My Bag does not go along with changing trends, choosing instead to build a permanent collection with an elegant, minimalist style. This way, an O My Bag bag completes your outfit without drawing attention to itself!

This Dutch brand is strongly committed to transparency. In recent years, O My Bag has disclosed the names and locations of all its tier 1 and 2 production partners. This includes all the production workshops where the bags are assembled and the tanneries where the leather is processed. Moreover, the certificates obtained were also announced!

COSH! hopes that this transparency will be extended to the further suppliers of the leather and cotton, so that here, too, it becomes clear in what conditions these production steps take place. By tracing the origin of the leather, the brand would also be able to share more information about animal welfare on the farms.