Inside Anya Hindmarch’s sustainable fashion revolution: after the iconic ‘I am not a plastic bag’ with celebrity fans like Keira Knightley and Reese Witherspoon, she’s back with The Universal Bag

Aug 1, 2022

UK designer Anya Hindmarch has taken fashion’s unsustainable footprint to heart with initiatives like her 2020 “I am not a plastic bag” tote made from 32 half-litre recycled plastic bottles. Photo: Anya Hindmarch

Anya Hindmarch has helped drastically reduce Britain’s plastic bag use with her canvas tote and continues to innovate towards genuine zero-waste fashion

The Universal Bag is popular already in supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, and has just added Hong Kong’s City’super to its list of global suppliers

In 2007, more than 80,000 people clamoured outside Sainsbury’s supermarkets across the UK for the instantly iconic “I am not a plastic bag” canvas tote – even though it had a production run of less than a quarter that number. In Taiwan, similar stampedes even sent 30 people to the hospital. The bag’s US$6 (£5) price tag soon multiplied 60-fold, with counterfeits fetching even more in some cases.

Inspired by the bestselling book Change the World for a Fiver, the limited-run tote was somewhat ironically aimed at replacing the excessive use of single-use plastic bags at supermarkets and soon found itself slung on the shoulders of Keira Knightley, Lily Allen and Reese Witherspoon. In the years since, the annual number of plastic bags used in the UK slumped from an estimated 10.6 billion in 2006 to 6.1 billion in 2010, according to the British Retail Consortium. In 2015, a plastic bag levy was introduced in the country.

UK designer Anya Hindmarch is leading a trend in sustainable fashion. Photo: Anya Hindmarch