Instantly recognizable for its bold, colorful designs, handbag label Truss has created a solid collection of crossbody bags, totes, and clutches—with sustainability and female empowerment woven into every style.
Launched exclusively with Barneys New York in 2015, Truss began as an accessory project curated by fashion and design industry veterans Gillian Tozer and Elise Durbecq. The pair, who met while working side-by-side at Opening Ceremony, took a trip to Mexico and found themselves enamored with the bags for sale at the local Oaxacan market.
“We were completely blown away by the complexity of the bags’ structure, their resilience, and their overall beauty—that was the spark for the line, so to speak,” Tozer tells us of the inspiration she and Durbecq found south of the border..
What began as a curated collection sourced from the marketplace has since developed into a growing handbag brand that pairs Tozer and Durbecq with Oaxacan artisans. The Brooklyn-based designers create bag concepts inspired by the two regions where they split their time: New York and Oaxaca.
Created using traditional techniques, each Truss bag takes between one and five days to construct. The bags are made of plastic that’s woven in geometric patterns around a box to build the base structure, then formed into the shape of a bag. The resulting collection consists of bold, bright bags in a variety of silhouettes and shapes—like market totes, folio clutches, and bucket bags—finished with leather trim, protective metal feet, and wide shoulder straps.