Grace Han is a British handbag and leather goods brand based on Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge. It will be celebrating its first anniversary in 2020 following a successful launch in February 2019. Its eponymous designer and founder was raised in Taipei, Taiwan, where the Grace Han design atelier is based. London, however, has always been home – her parents met there while studying – and although Grace has been immersed in both Eastern and Western cultures all her life, she was determined to launch her brand in the city that has sparked so many extraordinary fashion stories.
Values inherited from her prodigious parents have inspired the Grace Han journey. Her father is a successful entrepreneur and her mother a contemporary artist from Hong Kong, whose paintings take pride of place in the Beauchamp Place store. Every bag is considered to be a unique artistic creation, and for 2020 Grace plans to emphasise this with a series of artist collaborations at the store.
2019 was an exciting beginning, and there is great optimism around the brand’s innovative signature design, the Ballet Lesson collection. With its refined leather pleats, the design encapsulates the brand’s aim to bridge the gap between sleek minimalism and soft femininity. Despite being at the top end of the range, it has also been the most successful, showing that customers appreciate the dedicated pursuit of perfection.
The collection is named in homage to the tireless way in which ballet dancers train to build strength, form and grace. It seemed a perfect metaphor for the way in which Grace determinedly refined the design over many years, its elegant simplicity belying the painstaking techniques required to make it.
With its refined leather pleats, the design encapsulates the brand’s aim to bridge the gap between sleek minimalism and soft femininity
The pleats are hand-finished by a specialist in-house team in Taiwan, through a highly technical process of steam pressing each fold. The material is then shipped to Italy to be assembled with other components. There are two further collections: Love Letter, with a distinctive envelope closure inspired by letter writing, and Butterfly, a bold and graphic reinterpretation of the pleating that takes inspiration from metamorphosis.
Through a series of events at the flagship store – which is also the brand’s office and base – Grace has been delighted to engage with customers. She was determined it would feel like a warm, inviting, luxurious home, somewhere customers could relax and take time – our greatest indulgence – to enjoy the surroundings.
It was a special moment when the master craftswomen flew to London to give live demonstrations of the signature pleating technique; customers were also invited to weave their own Grace Han chains. Many more events are planned for 2020, and backpacks, totes, micro bags and phone bags will all be introduced to the collections.
Passionately believing that there is an opportunity to revive leather craftsmanship in Taiwan, Grace has invested in new staff and state- of-the-art machinery to gain greater control over the supply chain and focus strongly on quality. These are bags designed to be treasured, pieces which owe their inspiration to classic beauty and functionality which will stand the test of time – a worthy ambition for any luxury brand in 2020.
