Bags made of Banana Tree’s Fiber

New materials are coming….

In 2007, as I was travelling in the contryside of Brazil I came to know a poor community that works with banana trees’ fiber and I was very curious to understand all the process to make it. 

After the banana tree gives its fruits, the tree is cutted and the trunk is thrown away. People from small communities make a fiber from its trunk, and after that, they make very rustic bags and accessories. They cut it very thin, put it to dry and change its fiber into threads:

They generally make bags, and also some sort of knitting hats, all very rustic. It comes to be an extra way of making money, specially for older women, and they can work at their homes, as the bananas trees are in their garden. Some examples from other communities:

The idea was really good, because they work with something that goes to garbage: they are recycling. The point is they had the raw material, but they don’t have the right product to the market.

I first met one community in the state of Minas Gerais, that is in the centre area of Brazil. After that, I start a research and I found out another community around the city of Rio de Janeiro, near to where I live.

For the other hand, as I ‘m always in touch with several designer – I’ve been producing a market with new designers for the last 13 years -so I have the idea to put the bag designer in touch with the community, to interchange experiences and materials. 

Ana Gotti is one of them: her brand is from 2004, and she made the accessories for one fashion show that I produced. I knew she was doing a collection like baguette bags with straw and she-goat leather.

I introduced her this new material, and she was pretty interested on it! So, we went to the community, and they start the work! She gave a special treatment to the fiber, a sort of ink and resin to protect the material. 

Have a look on that  and the final product was great! I love the one with Swarovisky’s button. From this year on, Ana is selling her nice and exclusive banana tree’s fiber baguetti’s bags:

Katarina:

Rita:

Tarsila:

She has just been showing this work at the SIMM Fair at Madrid on the 17th of july (last week) where she presented a fashion show with her clothes and bags.

There are plenty possibilities for this material, and the brazilian design brand Estofados Jardim has just launched this year this chair with banana tree’s fiber: