The perfect bag

Lynda Sakraida has been searching for the perfect bag all her life, so when she was thinking ahead to her retirement as sales manager at L’Oreal almost four years ago, she already knew that sewing bags was what she wanted to do, even though she’d never made a thing in her life.

"I’m very fickle about bags. I’ve never found the right bag so I keep trying to make the perfect bag. I’m still trying," she said.

At the same time, she said, "I don’t make anything I don’t like, so you will never see me make a brown or beige bag because I don’t like brown or beige."

What Sakraida does like is color, and it fills her latest Hadji Baba Bags collection. She’s teamed up with artist Cindy Conklin for an exhibition at The Gallery at Ward Centre dubbed "Drenched" for its storm of color, and she jokes, "Bring your umbrella."

"We’ll be handing out sunglasses," Conklin added.

Although Sakraida’s business is named after her pet cockatiel, Hadji Baba, it seems apt for her designs, which incorporate an exotic mix of textiles and finds from all over the world.

Just a small sampling reveals handwoven hemp from the hill tribes of Thailand, silk from Indian saris and Japanese kimono, brass and gold-plated beads inset with colored stones from Nepal, and a mix of tagua, glass, stone and ivory beads.

She recalled a trip to Marseilles, France, where, unlike in America, fabric is kept behind a counter and shoppers must ask to see each individual bolt. Because she had to see everything, the shopkeeper was becoming exasperated, and told her, "Just tell me what you want."

At that point, she simply showed him photos of her bags, and suddenly they were best friends. He locked the doors and took her to his secret stash downstairs, where he pointed out: "This is YSL. Do you know YSL? This is Chanel. Do you know Chanel?"

Some of those designer textiles are included in her Drenched collection.

SHE’S COME a long way from her first attempt, which started when she saw a handbag on display in a fabric store. "They wouldn’t sell it to me, so I bought the pattern and was determined to make it," Sakraida said.

She already had a history of buying purses, keeping them around just to look at them, then giving them away without ever having used them.

Of course, never being satisfied with any bag, she kept trying to improve on her sewn creation, inventing new patterns and working through trial and error.

"I could have saved myself so much effort if I’d asked for help or read a book, but I wanted to do it myself, and I don’t know why," she said. "I’ve never been creative, never made anything in my life, so I guess it was a process that I had to learn from."

Her trial-and-error method led to a whole lot of originality in her creations.

"Since then, I’ve taught several classes, but I don’t think I’m a very good teacher because I don’t use patterns and I don’t have any rules," Sakraida said. "I don’t pin things down, so that’s a new concept for people, and, I think, frustrating for those who take a lot of workshops. They’ll ask me things like, ‘What kind of seam allowance should I use?’ I’m like, what is that? Or, what difference does it make?

"But there are a lot of people who have taken my classes who turn out some pretty good bags."

As a result of her vast, early experiments, Sakraida kept passing her creations on to friends. Before long, her friends were buried in handbags and one of them took a couple to designer Anne Namba, who added them to her retail showroom.

"I was lucky to be able to sell them at a high-end boutique," said Sakraida, whose Hadji Baba Bags typically sell for $100 to $390 at The Gallery at Ward Centre and the Honolulu Academy of Arts gift shop, topping out at about $480.

IN THE Drenched showcase, Sakraida’s bags are paired with Conklin’s small collages. Conklin was Sakraida’s first choice because they’ve shown together before and often find themselves on the same wavelength. It was no different this time, as Conklin, working independently, turned out a series of multicolored collages that play beautifully against Sakraida’s color-saturated creations.

For Conklin, the work marked a breakthrough involving a combination of textures and individually painted squares. "It turned out way better than I could have imagined. Where it goes from here, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. I just want it to be a discovery."

As for Sakraida, she’s still on her mission to make the perfect bag, but she has legions of fans who pray she doesn’t. "If I did, I’d probably make them all for myself," she said.