This former teacher’s handmade bags sell out within minutes every month
Tey Pei Hwa turned her love of Japanese kiss-lock bags, or gamaguchis, into homegrown brand Rags to Peaches.
The former teacher’s handmade bags have become so popular, they sell out within minutes every month.
Her love for gamaguchi bags started in 2012 when she chanced upon a shop selling them in Kyoto.
In 2019, she left her teaching job to be more present for her kids – and to start making gamaguchis.
Her parents were tailors for a time when she was child: “I remember sitting by the old Singer sewing machine and watching them sew.”
She makes 40 to 50 bags a month in her studio, which typically sell out in 10 to 15 minutes.
To make a gamaguchi, Tey sketches a pattern to fit the metal frame. She then cuts, irons and stitches the pieces together to form the bag body before fitting it into the frame.
The Rags to Peaches logo was inspired by a daughter she lost five months into her pregnancy in 2022, due to congenital heart and brain conditions.
When she found out she was pregnant, she sewed tiny gamaguchis for her baby: “Sometimes when I sew now, I think about how these are the bags that were never meant to be.”
