Fabrique’s Fall Bags Are ‘Less Serious, Less Formal, and Much More Wearable’

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Fabrique’s fall bags carry the names of the designers who made them, veterans of Hermès, Bottega Veneta, Alaïa, and Saint Laurent now working under their own credit.

“You’re moving fast, bag on your shoulder, hands full of everything else, and the strap slips,” Fabrique says in its introduction to the Marais, the new soft Boston bag from Milan designer Giorgia Scarpa. “Not off, just down.” Scarpa, who directed leather goods at Saint Laurent, Bvlgari, and Dior over a three-decade career, noticed that moment on a street in Paris and designed the Marais so its strap would shift and settle with the wearer. She walked Le Marais for weeks before sketching the bag.

Scarpa is one of four designers behind Fabrique’s fall bags, and the collective, which works with more than 400 designers, lists each one’s name, city, and start year. Angela Lauria designed leather goods at Alaïa, Bottega Veneta, and Stella McCartney, Valeria Massai spent 11 years as women’s leather goods director at Bottega Veneta, and Sophie Jousse spent more than a decade at Hermès. The bags cost between $468 and $788. “Fabrique is very special project because it’s bringing designers that the consumers are choosing because on what they see and not because the brand that they represent,” Adriano Goldschmied, the Italian denim designer and a member of the collective, said in remarks published by Fabrique.

Giorgia Scarpa’s Marais Bag

Scarpa led the Serpenti collection at Bvlgari and now runs an independent studio in Milan that consults for Loewe, Gucci, and Roger Vivier. Fabrique says she starts each collection with the realities of a working woman and moves away from rigid formality toward a “softer, destructured silhouette.” The Marais comes in two versions: olive brown sueder and dark brown waxed leather on the same frame, each with rotating strap hardware, a rear zip pocket, and interior slip pockets. Fabrique says its wax “gradually settles into the leather fibers,” leaving “subtle, distinctive wear marks and a personal patina.”

“Meno seria, meno formale e molto più portabile per la vita di tutti i giorni,” Scarpa said of the Marais, a line the brand translates as “less serious, less formal, and much more wearable for everyday life.”

The Designers Behind Fabrique’s Rialto, Monti, and La Scala Bags

Massai spent 11 years at Bottega Veneta, where she designed some of the house’s recognizable bags under Daniel Lee, after earlier roles at Prada, Miu Miu, Jil Sander, and Helmut Lang, and she has also worked with Dior and Bvlgari. She grew up in a medieval Tuscan village and works with a small team from a farmhouse studio in the Tuscan countryside. Massai has designed for Fabrique since 2024, starting with its first bag collection, Beach to City, and the brand says she makes accessories to be “used, lived with, and passed on.”

Her Rialto Double Flap Handbag, named for Venice’s Rialto Bridge, costs $788 and has a layered front that can be worn with both flaps down or with one tucked away. Two detachable straps let it be carried by hand, on the shoulder, crossbody, or as a backpack, and a luggage strap on the back fits over a suitcase handle. The Dutch calfskin is drum-tumbled for 72 hours, a padded sleeve lined in herringbone holds a 13-inch laptop, and the triple-lock clasp is stainless steel plated in 18-karat gold. At about 1,080 grams, it is the heaviest of the four bags.

Jousse worked across small leather goods and signature handbags during her decade-plus at Hermès, then joined Celine as a senior leather goods designer, where she worked on the chain-strap Triomphe bag and led development of the Plage Bucket bags. At Fendi, she drew on the house archives to revive the double-F saddle bags and the Mon Trésor. She lives in Rome and joined Fabrique in 2025.

The Monti East West Shoulder Bag, named for Rome’s oldest quarter, costs $468 and weighs about 560 grams, which makes it the lightest and least expensive of the four. Its leather is oil tanned, waxed three times, and polished by hand. The bag has a hidden magnetic pocket on the back, a gold-tooth zipper with double leather pulls, two D-rings for charms, and buckled handles, and Fabrique says it fits a compact umbrella or a bottle of wine. It comes in burgundy, midnight, ruby, soleil, golden brown, and a dark brown suede, and the collection includes an $88 mini bag charm.

Lauria joined Fabrique in 2026 after working as studio manager at Bottega Veneta under Tomas Maier and Daniel Lee, senior leather goods designer at Alaïa under Pieter Mulier, and head of leather goods at Stella McCartney. Her La Scala takes its name from Milan’s opera house, and Fabrique credits the building’s “straight lines meeting curves, symmetry stacked on symmetry” for the bag’s shape. Three compartments sit stacked “like a sandwich cookie,” in Fabrique’s words, with a 14-inch laptop in the center and laptops up to 13 inches in the front and back. The black pebble grain version costs $688, and its textured leather helps conceal everyday marks. A slim adjustable strap with a removable shoulder pad and a curved buckle engraved with the brand emblem finish the design, and the bag also comes in burgundy and russet brown.

“A tribute to the classics,” Lauria said of her work for Fabrique. “Made for now.”

Through Oct. 4, Fabrique’s Designer Week gives members double points at twice the usual redemption value, and the code ETHOS20 takes $20 off eligible bags.

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