Vegan Bags Australia

What are your bags made from?

Regular "vegan leather", also known as faux leather or pleather - the kind that you find in most retail stores - is simply plastic. PU and PVC are made from fossil fuel petroleum. It's not animal skin, which is great, but it's not the best for the environment.

Even other plant based leathers that you may have heard of, including cactus, pineapple, grape, mushroom and mango, require a plastic coating for their durability. Don't get us wrong, they are much better than pleather! But we were on the hunt for a truly plastic-free product.

After about 5 years of searching, we finally got our hands on samples of MIRUM®. This material is made by brilliant chemists in the US. They figured out how to transform natural materials into a robust, waterproof, flexible, leather-like structure.

MIRUM® is made from:

– Natural rubber
– Minerals
– Natural colorants
– Patented plant-based curative
– Natural fabric backer

Are your bags Australian made?

No, unfortunately we couldn't find a handbag workshop in Australia that would produce for our brand - it seems that it's a lost art! The only handbag workshops we could find in Australia were leather producers that only sew for their own labels.

So we looked abroad to Portugal, a country famous for it's expertise in leather making. Our bags are made at a small female-run, family owned workshop of about 20 makers near Porto in Portugal. Established in 1975, and with some workers that have been with the factory for four decades, our team are incredibly experienced and talented.

Adhering to tradition and unimpressed with tacky, flaky, pleather - our team had only used animal leather in the past. However, they were incredibly impressed with the sustainability and visual/tactile characteristics of MIRUM® - including its weight, flexibility, durability and texture. They embraced our brand as an exciting eco-friendly and futuristic project.

Are you Australian owned?

We sure are! Our founder, Holly Edwards, was raised on the Central Coast (between Newcastle and Sydney) before she moved to the Gold Coast to study business and design. She lived on the Gold Coast for 10 years - before taking off to work remotely whilst backpacking around Europe.

Holly tried for years to find eco-friendly, luxurious, responsibly made vegan bags, but couldn't - so she made them! She created the first version of Lost Woods as her final university design project in 2017 - some incredibly rustic, hippy looking cork clutches, lol. She worked for the next 6 years on the side of her marketing job to create something plastic-free, minimal and high end that could compete with designer leather handbag brands.