Today’s Mos Eisley Marketplace article features Star Wars fan and geek accessory designer Lesley Farquhar, of The Bag Depot. Run by Lesley and her mom Janice, The Bag Depot has a great range of Star Wars handbags and accessories available online, using both licensed fabrics and also a few unique fabric designs like R2-KT (if you’re not familiar with the story behind R2-KT, read more here).
I’ve known Lesley for many years, through the Star Wars costuming community – I love seeing creative fans joining in the world of Star Wars fashion. The Bag Depot currently has 10 different bag styles available, and can also make accessories like makeup brush rolls, and even dresses!
The Bag Depot bag prices range from US$15.00 to US$45.00 each – they can ship internationally. Check out the full range at The Bag Depot online store, and continue reading for an interview with Lesley.
Shop the range of Star Wars bags and accessories at The Bag Depot
Follow The Bag Depot on social media – Facebook – Instagram – Pinterest
How long have you been creating Star Wars bags?
Bag Depot itself started about 6 years ago. We started with more mainstream fabrics—flowers, balloons, pets, wine, kitchen stuff, teachers, and then of course holiday themed fabrics. While these sold fairly well, it wasn’t where I wanted it to be. At that point I was deeply immersed in Star Wars costuming (I still am!), and thought ‘maybe we should do a geeky line?’. I brought the idea up to my business partner, who happens to be my beautiful amazing mother—she was skeptical at first—but agreed to give it a shot! So we started searching out fabrics—mostly Star Wars, Star Trek, and Disney. That was mostly what was out there at the time…there has been a HUGE explosion of licensed fabric since we started. After getting some fabrics in and making a few and sharing them online to friends and family, and getting a lot more interest—we realized we were on to something. That’s when we took the plunge, invested in a lot of material, and started heavy production—leading up to our first convention four years ago at Long Beach ComicCon!
What inspired you to start designing and creating Star Wars bags?
Star Wars is such an icon—its recognized everywhere now—so it was a natural starting base for bag-making with a geeky theme. Some of my favorite bags that we’ve ever done were designed around costume pieces—like the Corellian Bloodstripe on Han Solo’s pants, or the Rebel X Wing Pilot jumpsuit and flak vest! I still have designs I want to do that are on the worktable also.
What are some of your favourite Star Wars fashion items in your wardrobe or wishlist (can be something you’ve made/plan to make)?
My favorite item that we make now is the Hawaiian Shirts we started making last year. I have a friend here that lives in El Centro, CA. He was begging us to make Hawaiian shirts…we put it off for a while, but then took the plunge and started working on patterns. After some trial and errors, especially on sizing, we got our first few shirts done—and they were a HUGE hit. After our friend did some product testing (aka, wearing everywhere he could), we made a few pattern revisions and then introduced them online. And we’ve been swamped with orders ever since! Mostly Star Wars, but also Star Trek, Doctor Who, Wonder Woman, Walking Dead/Zombie/Monster themes, and a few others. We’ve even done some really unique stuff like Carcassone fabric. One client even wore one of our shirts to a Hawaiian shirt contest and won it! We make the shirts in all sizes, right now from Small to 5X and higher—as I want to be able to share the love of all things geeky with any client! We want to expand the shirts into a ladies style as well as kids.
Do you have any particular favourite Star Wars fashion brands (licensed or fan made)?
I love that there is so much Star Wars geek wear out there now. Torrid has a great selection, especially for larger ladies like me. Of course I have to give a huge shout out to Her Universe for really bringing it mainstream. Ashley Eckstein has done an AMAZING job and she’s really someone I look up to in the industry.
Do you have a personal favourite design from your own range of Star Wars bags/apparel?
My favorite thing to design is the dresses! I don’t have the time to make as many as I’d like—and most wind up being one-of-a-king creations. We’ve made R2 and R2kT Dresses, a “Galaxy dress” with Star Wars trim/borders, and a “Lady Vader” dress that was worn on the fan section of the red carpet at the Force Awakens premiere in LA last year. I have two new dresses planned for our spring conventions—both in a more 50’s rockabilly style—featuring a silky “tiki vader” fabric and a really neat Doctor Who inspired pattern.
Your range includes licensed and custom designed print fabrics – what sort of fabrics do you typically use for your Star Wars bags?
Most of the time, the fabrics we use are 100% cotton. They actually wear the best in terms of strength. We buy fabric from all over the globe, and strive to make each bag unique from the others. While the patterns are generally the same, no two bags are alike because linings are different, or fabric orientation, number of pockets, closures, etc. There is a wonderful amount of variety in the cottons too! Silky fabrics and others are more suited for clothing items. We would love to find heavier weight fabrics for making backpacks and duffels—as plain cotton is just too weak for anything above 20 lbs or so, even when we reinforce and layer up our fabrics the way we do. Ideally, if the money were right, we would love to design 2-6 custom fabrics and get our own licenses for The Bag Depot—however that takes a lot of time and money, but it’s definitely on the table for future plans! In the meantime commercially available fabrics work for us!
Can customers commission you for custom bags?
Absolutely we do custom bags! We’ve done several so far, and have more on the workbench now. In total we offer 10 styles of bags, plus make-up rollups, placemats and mug rugs, wine coolers, shirts, dresses, and plan to add helmet bags, backpacks, duffels, and maybe a few more items to the list!
Which is the best way for fans to get in touch with you regarding purchasing an item?
We have a variety of ways for clients to get ahold of us. We’re on email of course (thebagdepot@gmail.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/thebagdepot). We’re also on Instagram—which is the BEST place to see everything new we do—all our sneak peeks are there! (@thebagdepot), we’re also on Pinterest, and our primary website www.the-bag-depot.com.
Many thanks to Lesley for her time in answering my questions. I love seeing fans taking their love of Star Wars and creating their own accessories and apparel. The Bag Depot has a wonderful range of bag styles and fabric prints to choose from – I can’t narrow down a favourite!
Photos sourced from and belong to The Bag Depot.
