Made-in-America Handbag Company Is Growing

Down by the wharf in Portland, Me., a little handbag company is setting sail for new territory. It includes more than 20 retail locations along the East Coast and 140,000 handmade bags sold each year. The company, Sea Bags, began with Hannah Kubiak, who in 1999 was living aboard her father’s sailboat in Maine. As a hobby, Kubiak started making bags from recycled sail cloth. Since Kubiak was sewing the bags by hand, she could only produce about 40 a year. Still, that was enough to catch the attention of Beth Shissler, who began buying the bags in bulk and reselling them at her mother’s gift shop. In 2006, the duo decided to partner and Sea Bags the business was born. But it’s only recently that the business has really taken off. In fact, Sea Bags has quadrupled in size in the last four years, with sales consistently increasing 25 percent year-over-year. The retail portion of the business has grown 35 percent year-over-year. “Our growth has been only limited by our production capacity and our ability to ramp that up,” said Don Oakes, chief executive officer of Sea Bags. The impressive growth tells a story of a company that employs nearly

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