
Literally starting out of his basement, Anton Sandqvist started his self-named label after working as a mechanical engineer for several years.
Starting out officially in 2004, Sandqvist’s has a background in making things for himself. “I grew up in a small village and was spending lots of time building things in our large garage, full of old junk” says the designer. “I used to play with my mothers sewing machine, making my own jeans as a teenager”.
Still a relatively new venture, Anton says that he’s just started working full time in the bag label after doing this and his engineering job for five years. He describes the label as ‘Function and style without a twist’, which, given that nearly everyone’s obsessed with putting a twist on things, is an interesting way to put it.

The bags are made in India, ‘”[we use] two small family businesses. One of them, a factory in Chennai, is using old, very nice machinery which they imported from a closed down leather factory in Sweden,” says Anton. “The other one is a leather and canvas bag factory in Kolkata. The factory owner’s son went to Sweden for studies and somehow we met him. Since then they’ve made all of our canvas bags.”
The fabrics are usually vegetable tanned leather and the canvas is “heavy cotton canvas dyed in the colours we want. From 2011 all our canvas will be organic and certified. It’s been difficult to switch to organic canvas, the quantity is around 4000 meters, which is a lot of material for a small company like us.”
When it comes to the topic of prestige Sandqvist says, “Our bags are reasonably affordable for being a small brand. and we spend next to no money on marketing campaigns. It’s about making good products that people want and need. We don’t build dreams in our brand we just try to make great bags.








