The Sak

For an everyday bag with real hand-craft behind it, The Sak earns its keep. The crochet and leather styles are built for daily carry rather than occasion, and shoppers tend to reach for the same piece season after season. If you value a casual, textured look and a brand that has been hand-crafting bags since 1989, it is an easy yes.

Crochet construction is The Sak's signature, and it is what most owners praise. The hand-worked yarn gives the bags a soft, tactile body that holds its shape with use, and the casual texture is the whole point of the design. As with any woven piece, treat the surface gently and it will wear in handsomely over years.

Start with a crochet piece, since hand-crochet is the construction the brand is best known for. If you want something with heritage, look to the 120 Hobo silhouette, the model most often tied to The Sak's rise in the 1990s and revived for the brand's 30th anniversary. It is the most recognisably The Sak shape you can carry.

Handbags and accessories built around crochet construction, which became the brand's defining feature after it moved into woven nylon and crochet designs in the mid-1990s. The hand-crafted textures and casual styling are what the label is identified with. The 120 Hobo is the single style most associated with that era.

The brand's roots are hands-on and artisanal. The founders were inspired by locally produced rattan goods after a trip to Bali, Indonesia, and that hand-crafted approach informed the early designs. To this day the label leans on hand-worked construction rather than purely machine production.

The Sak was founded in 1989 in San Francisco by Mark Talucci and Todd Elliott. They launched the business with roughly $20,000 in personal funds and started out of a garage, with early production focused on handcrafted rattan handbags inspired by a trip to Bali.

After starting with rattan bags sold through California specialty shops, the company shifted in the mid-1990s to woven nylon and crochet designs marketed as The Sak. That move coincided with wider distribution through U.S. department stores including Macy's, Nordstrom and Dillard's, and by the late 1990s the brand had grown into a multimillion-dollar business.

Yes, and it is part of how the brand presents itself. The Sak Brand Group became a certified B Corporation in 2022, scoring 103.1 on the B Impact Assessment. The brand has also tied its anniversary work to artisan communities, directing proceeds from its 30th-anniversary collection to a fund supporting healthcare and education for female artisans in Bali.

No. While crochet is the signature, The Sak produces handbags and accessories more broadly, and its history includes both crochet and leather products. The founders also launched a separate label, Elliott Lucca, in 2003, so the wider group has reached beyond the core crochet line.

Because The Sak is widely stocked through department stores as well as its own channels, seasonal transitions are usually the most rewarding moments to shop, when stores rotate stock. If a particular crochet colourway catches your eye, though, buy it when you see it, since hand-worked pieces and limited runs do not always return.

Treat the woven body as the delicate part. Keep it away from rough surfaces and sharp objects that can snag the yarn, store it stuffed so it holds its shape, and spot-clean rather than soaking it. Handled this way, a hand-crochet piece keeps its texture and ages into something with character.