Angie Kirk is steeped in the style and stories of Manchester. Dressed in an elegant wardrobe of head-to-toe navy in clean, utilitarian cuts, she shares the experiences that have shaped her and led to Marisel Goods, the brand for her handmade luxury bags. 

“I moved to Manchester in 1989,” she says. “My oldest friend had a shop.” Located in the basement of the old Royal Exchange, the shop was there for almost a decade before it was destroyed by the IRA Manchester bombing in 1996. “There were shops in the basement, shops on the first floor, and it also had a first floor. And all were independent boutiques. Manchester was full of them then.”

Kirk got her start sewing and running studios for some of those independents, flitting between studios and parties at the height of the city’s Haçienda era.

“Everyone was doing a club night,” she tells me, her eyes glittering with memories like disco ball reflections. “It was great. It was affordable. You could get a job dead easy. That’s how I got into styling. I met a stylist and she was a DJ.”

Styling for television enabled Kirk to begin making bags alongside her commercial work. “I lived in Macclesfield and I had a work room there that was like £100 a month. When you’re working for television, you’re earning…so you could afford to have a work room that you weren’t in all the time.”

Reminiscing about that time, she recalls: “I made my first bag in, oh my goodness, maybe late 90s. It’s out of pond lining.” The bag was made to house the leather-bound fashion portfolio she carried around to show designers. As we’re talking, Kirk rummages under her workbench to draw out a faded, but still sturdy bag in a simple, rounded design. “It’s ancient,” she says, smiling. “It’s about 35-years-old.” 

The process

“It looks like getting lost in something, like a flow state.” This is how Kirk describes her process. The flow follows each bag through every step from beginning to end, rather than a production line of repeated steps. This extends the making time, but is part of what makes each bag unique.

“I do make them individually because I think you have to focus on the individual bag. Because invariably, you might be working in different materials, so it’s a kind of tactile thing.” 

The materials are carefully selected for quality, durability, and cost. Some of her suppliers also sell to people connected to the Royal family. “They’re saddlers,” explains Kirk. “So, all the accessories, anything you see, it’s either military or saddlery.”

Drawing on her years as a stylist in Manchester, Kirk is interested in the look and feel of materials. “I’ve always liked camouflage, and I think that’s shopping in army and navy stores. I used to live around the corner from the army and navy stores on Tib Street. Military has those specific technical qualities.” While those shops that since closed their doors, their influence lives on in her designs.

Many of Kirk’s bags are also made of leather in classic colours; tan, pepperpot white, and deep, rich green. Leather is the material she works in most often, which presents specific challenges and joys. “Other than the fact that you could mess it up, it’s actually really lovely,” says Kirk, stroking some of the cut pieces she has laid out. “It’s a really satisfying thing to work with. But you just have to be so precise. It’s unforgiving, really, you can’t get away with anything at all.” 

Fashion influences

Meanwhile, Kirk says that her colour palette has evolved over the years.

“It’s developed through working in interiors. I’m aware that, over the past decade, we’ve had lots of colour mixes of, say, burgundies with khaki, with yellow.” As she speaks, she pulls out trims of various colours, laying them over camo fabric and leather. “If you look at interiors, that basically ends up spilling over into fashion anyway.”

Kirk often looks for shapes that she can elevate, like her grocer bag in the early 2010s which was inspired by 90s utility wear and her weekly shop. “With the Tesco grocer bag. I thought, ‘oh, I could make that, I could make that in soft leather’.” So she did, using the shape and transforming it. More recently she has expanded her line. “I was inspired by the IKEA bag. It’s about transforming it into a festival bag.” This time in a hard-wearing, chocolate-brown Cordura fabric.

Quality above all

Longevity is crucial and is therefore a key part of why Kirk focuses on quality over price.

“Quality’s just in my DNA. Everything I wear, it doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s not about that. But that’s having an eye, isn’t it?” She pins being able to spot quality at a reasonable price on her buying eye, honed while working as a stylist, an activity that has also influenced her bags. “It’s almost like tuning into producing a luxury bag, but without the price tag.”

She continues: “It was all about utility. I’m not about adornment…I want quality and I want to produce quality. I think that’s mainly what I’m about – producing something quality.” She laughs. “I’d be mortified if I didn’t.”

While gently ruffling a rack of carefully arranged bags, she says: “All of this is so limited…there might be one more, but it won’t be in that colour.” As she pulls items out, she adds: “Everything is either a one-off or a limited run. I’ve probably only ever made half a dozen of those in the past 15 years.”

Because of the care taken and the individuality of each bag, Kirk cares deeply about who owns them.

“I get a great kick out of the right person coming to buy,” she says. “That’s the important thing, that somebody takes it away and goes, ‘oh, I love this bag’. And I want people to have that bag for a long time, so that when it gets old, they still love it.”

Words and pictures by Rowan Twine

Main image: Angie Kirk by Rowan Twine

 

You can find Angie Kirk’s bags on Instagram and at markets around Manchester