Talented Shaunelle wows with HANDCRAFTED BAGS
Equipped with what he believes to be natural talent, Shaunelle Richards is hoping to one day see his creative, handmade bags in stores across Jamaica.
Although making bags is not his full-time job, the budding 35-yearold entrepreneur told THE STAR that he was inspired to create bags by his beloved grandmother who, despite being blind, did not allow her disability to hinder her. “She used to make rugs and hat, suh when mi decide fi start making the bags it come to mi just naturally,” Richards said, adding that he has a strong love for his craft.
“A my passion dis, enuh. Mi actually wah see mi self a duh this as a business, have mi things dem out deh in a di stores and deh all bout, everywhere,” Richards said.
A tiler by profession, Richards told THE STAR that he has the unique ability to just see or think of a design and create it, all without any form of training.
“If mi have an idea, mi can just automatically bring it to life, so mi find miself to me more like a designer. Even though mi can design and sew wid it, mi more see miself as a designer because mi create things differently,” he said.
Richards’ creative bag line has a variation of stylish pieces, from small shoulder bags, which take him about an hour to make, to larger bag packs which can take triple the time. He said that there is a strong demand for the bags, and since moving to Negril, Westmoreland, from Clarendon, he has been getting many orders.
“I’m at a hotel tiling now, and mi come and mi show di people mi bags and di people dem over here love dem and mi start get whole heap a orders, is like double and triple the amount mi use to get,” Richards said, adding that most of his customers are Jamaicans. However, he is hoping to expand his customer base soon.
“Mi nuh really expose it to the tourist them as yet … but weh mi a try to do now is get a shop here and start do all variety of things like mek Jamaica colour bags, all different kind a bags for the regular customers and the tourist them,” Richards said.