Tessa Nepomuceno began her brand, Calli, after more than a decade exporting bags to brands abroad. She also had a boutique of imported goods at Karrivin Plaza in the early 2000s. She decided to sell the wooden bags she found in Paete, and they sold out in less than a week. This encouraged her, and in a year she was making her own designs.
Tessa Nepomuceno
A wooden bag by Calli
She decided to venture into making her own brand and to stop exporting after she won best product design in 2014 in an international show. She also won the Katha Award in Manila FAME for Best Design. It was a turning point; she vowed to concentrate on Calli, which is named after her son Kahlil.
“My goal was simple before I started Calli. I wanted to sell bags. I wanted to sustain my family,” says Nepomuceno. “But being in the fashion industry and the exporting industry are different from each other. It’s not just selling now. I learned that in this industry, you need to be involved, you need to evolve and make a difference, by, for example, by creating different designs every season.”
Beadwork and embellishments are part of Calli’s designs
A model with a Calli bag
Nepomuceno has an able team. Under her tutelage are women who live just outside of Merville and do the beadwork of Calli. She has a team of bagmakers in Paete. The hardware of the wooden bags come from Hong Kong “because the quality is better than what we can find here.” Otherwise, all her materials are from the Philippines. Besides beads, she uses semi-precious stones, seashells and indigenous materials into her designs.
“I make bags for everyday and for all occasions. Before, they were all small and for evening. I have handbags and bigger handbags now. From plain carving, I added more leather, metals and stones,” she says. She has a diffusion line called Ten by Calli “for the millennials who like my bag styles.” When she began the brand, people asked her if there was anything cheaper and she decided to price Ten by Calli between P4,000 and P8,000 pesos. Calli is priced at P9,000 to P18,000.
One of Calli’s most popular designs
“My vision is to last in the industry, to share my creativity with the young designers, and also for the brand itself to be known not only locally but also globally. I’m hoping that we’ll be known in Paris. I’ve been in trade shows as an exporter in New York, the US and Tokyo, but I really want to be in Paris. I also want to have a flagship store in Manila one day, preferably at Rockwell.”
A boxy Calli bag
The most important quality her bags have, she says, is sustainability. “The materials we use are not harmful to the environment. We have our communities in Laguna and Parañaque. When wooden bags weren’t in demand back then, everybody used acacia wood. Now there’s deforestation. Now when we harvest, we make sure we plant as well.”
Calli is at ArteFino at The Fifth at Rockwell and North Court at Power Plant Mall from August 24-27. Visit the https://callibags.com/ site and @callibags on Instagram.
