About Us
Sustainability meets young, Asian design. That's the idea behind my label BY COPALA. Our bags and pens are made from recycled wood, cork, paper or leaves.
BY COPALA stands for creative designs, sustainable and mostly vegan bags. All items are handmade, by ourselves or with the help of artist friends or craftsmen.
Most of our bags made of paper, leaves or cork are not waterproof, but highly water-repellent and, due to the processing of the very durable materials, particularly long-lasting – ideal for daily use.
We usually produce only small quantities of each design. Bulk orders are possible for some bags and for all pens. If you are interested, we will be happy to inform you personally. Just send me a message.
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The story begins by the roadside. Bangkok 2008, somewhere in the urban jungle. Street food, fortune tellers, fake clothes and many other stalls screaming for attention. In the middle of it all, an inconspicuous stall with a laptop sleeve made of cork.
Made of cork? Wait, they're almost always made of plastic. This one sleeve isn't. Feels great. Could be a bit better padded. There's also room for improvement with the zipper. Nevertheless: there it is, that one idea out of 100,000 that actually makes sense.
The rest is history: bought the sleeve, improved the material, adjusted the design, replaced plastic parts with metal and incorporated better padding. Sounds easy, but it actually took a small eternity and a lot of effort until we found our standard for the perfect laptop sleeve.
Functional & minimalist design
Today, you'll find over 40 different designs for sustainable laptop sleeves. All vegan, handmade and in our typical minimalist design: reduced to the essentials yet functional. That's what sets us apart. Also with all other products we now offer in our shop: wallets, bags, backpacks and much more.
The materials today are even more diverse: in addition to cork, we use ultra-stable kraft paper and laminated leaves, which make each sleeve unique due to the cutting of the materials.
Where the journey leads? We'll see, we're constantly discovering new ideas. Bowls made from banana stalks – too expensive to produce. Packaging made from reeds – others do it better. Wallets made from hemp – well. We try a lot of things to consistently develop the really good ideas further. Currently: coffee cups made from wood that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. Here too, we are well on our way to the perfect, sustainable cup. Just one example of many!