When a Bag Has More Lives Than a Cat
What if your handbag's packaging had a life before it reached you — and what if the people who made it were the very same people helping to hold South Africa together? That's not a rhetorical question. That's what's happening right now at Winklmayr.
We're not in the habit of blowing our own trumpet. Loudly, anyway. But occasionally something we've built deserves a proper moment in the spotlight — not because it looks good on paper, but because it genuinely makes us proud every single time we think about it.
So settle in, because this one's got recycled plastic bottles, extraordinary women, and (spoiler) a rather brilliant bit of leathercraft that doesn't add a single thing to the landfill.
The packaging problem most brands ignore
Luxury and landfill have had a long, uncomfortable relationship. Most high-end products arrive wrapped in tissue, boxed in cardboard, swathed in ribbons, and tucked into a carrier bag — all of which ends up in the bin before the customer has even put the kettle on. It's a bit mad when you think about it. You spend months crafting something beautiful, and then it travels to its new home in materials destined to be crushed within the hour.
We decided to do something different.
Every Winklmayr handbag now arrives in a packaging bag made from Stitchbond fabric — a luxuriously soft, durable, non-woven material produced by Romatex, one of South Africa's largest household textile manufacturers. What makes it remarkable is what it's made from: rPET fibre, which is to say — recycled plastic bottles. South African ones, at that.
Romatex has been quietly doing something extraordinary for years, repurposing over a hundred million bottles into this and similar materials. The fabric is smooth to the touch, holds its shape beautifully, and makes for a packaging bag that you'd actually want to keep. Which, of course, is entirely the point.
The women behind the bags
Here's where it gets even better. The packaging bags aren't produced in a factory somewhere. They're stitched by hand — by gogos.
In South Africa, a "gogo" is a grandmother, and the country's gogos are nothing short of heroic. It's estimated that approximately four million children in South Africa are being raised by their grandmothers — women who stepped in when other circumstances made it necessary, and who do so with remarkable grace and very little support.
goGOGOgo is a registered non-profit organisation in Johannesburg working to change that. Their mission is to transform the lives of these third-generation caregivers through skills development, training, and — crucially — paid work. Our collaboration with them means that the gogos who stitch your packaging bag are earning income, building skills, and doing something they can genuinely point to with pride.
For us, it's about a lot more than packaging. It's about making sure that every part of what we do connects to something meaningful. The leather is crafted with extraordinary care by our artisans. The packaging is crafted with equal care by women who are holding their families — and in some small way, their communities — together.
We think you'll agree that's rather a nice thing to be part of when you purchase a Winklmayr piece.
See it for yourself
We made a short film about the whole thing. Have a watch — it features the ladies themselves, the material, and rather more warmth than your average brand video.
Gogos, gloves, and a left hook
And since we're on the subject of gogos doing absolutely remarkable things — you may have spotted this wonderful photo essay in the Daily Maverick this past week: a group of Alexandra's elderly residents lacing up boxing gloves and putting in the rounds at a training session at Morningside shopping centre.
Led by their trainer Lubabalo Mooi, the group — average age considerably north of sixty — warm up with a run, throw punches, stretch, laugh, and finish with a well-earned cup of tea. Their motto, more or less: age is no barrier to staying active, healthy, and absolutely fierce.
We adore this. There's something about gogos — whether they're sewing packaging in Johannesburg or landing jabs in Alexandra — that captures something essential about South African spirit. They get on with it. They find community in it. And they do it with enormous warmth.
It's not a coincidence that the women we've partnered with at goGOGOgo embody exactly that same energy. If we could convince them to do both, we absolutely would.
Buying well, not just buying more
We make a relatively small number of pieces. Each one is crafted by hand, from genuinely extraordinary materials — African ostrich, crocodile, and other exotic leathers that are farmed responsibly and with full traceability. Nothing is mass-produced. Nothing is disposable. That's not a marketing line; it's simply how we work.
The packaging collaboration is a natural extension of that philosophy. If we're asking you to invest in something that will last decades, it seems only right that every part of its journey to you reflects the same values.
So when your Winklmayr piece arrives, take a moment to appreciate the bag it comes in. It was once a plastic bottle. It was stitched by a gogo in Johannesburg. And it's now yours to keep.
That's what we mean by not adding to the landfill.