Griet Aesaert from Ghent is known for making handmade handbags from Belgian leather. For the next two years, she will design the travel pouches for Brussels Airlines. Every year, about 170,000 of her pouches will travel around the world. “My next dream is to work with Angèle,” she says.
Last summer, Griet received an email from the company that supplies items for Brussels Airlines planes. At first, she thought the email was spam. “It sounded too good to be true, so I ignored it,” she says. A week later, she got an invitation for a video call and decided to respond. The request turned out to be real.
Brussels Airlines asked her to design a travel pouch for business class. She had never done something like that before. The pouch needed to be colorful and include skincare products. For the colorful lining, she chose artwork by Elisia Poelman. For the skincare products, she worked with Barbara Geusens from Nomige, a beauty brand based on DNA. They know each other from meeting at the school gate.
“I hesitated for a moment because I wanted to keep my own identity. But Brussels Airlines is a strong name.”
The three women worked together, made a short video, and won the contract. For the next two years, they will create four different pouches for flights to Africa, Washington, and New York. Each year, about 170,000 pouches will travel around the world.
This is a very large number. Last year, Aesaert sold about 580 bags through her webshop and the same number through shops. This resulted in a turnover of 204,000 euros, excluding VAT. She does not earn money from the airline pouches, but she says the collaboration is valuable because Brussels Airlines has a strong name.
Belgian leather
Aesaert is an architect and worked for five years for Stéphane Beel. In 2018, she left architecture to fully focus on her hobby: designing handbags. Her love for the craft started during an internship in Zurich, Switzerland, where she began working with leather from the small leather shop next door.
“When I returned to Belgium, I took a course. Soon after, I bought materials and moved into this atelier.”
For a long time, Aesaert made every bag herself, using leather from the Walloon tannery Masure, which is specially softened for her. But around Christmas last year, she decided to change her approach because her head, and her order book, were too full. From now on, part of the bags will be produced by a company in Waregem, which has a factory in Tunisia.
“When the first ten bags arrived, I had to take a moment,” she says. “Until then, I knew every bag I sold. I could tell you exactly where the thread ended.” But customers ordering through the webshop mainly expect fast delivery. “So now I make a distinction between the standard collection and custom-made pieces, which I continue to make myself. That can be, for example, a bag with a lining made from the shirt of someone who has passed away.”
Although growth is less important to Aesaert than quality of life, she will soon move into a new building “15 times bigger than this one” which will include a shop, an atelier, and space for workshops. In addition to the Brussels Airlines collection, which she also wants to sell herself, there will be a new line with a travel bag, a toiletry bag, and a laptop sleeve.
Also on the agenda is a trip to Hong Kong, where the Brussels Airlines pouches are made. “They told us the working conditions are good, but we would like to see it for ourselves,” she says. “Preferably in business class,” she adds with a laugh.