Hattie stewart poppy lissiman clutch masters

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Tiff Manuell is a South Australian artist, illustrator, and designer of her own line of accessories. After deciding to take two days off per week (from her other job—at commercial illustration art brand Happy House, which she also co-founded), she began designing various clutches, laptop bags, and handbags, along with other accessories such as necklaces and key rings. Although Manuell’s goal is to make each product one-of-a-kind, all of her products have one common characteristic: they evolved from an original work of abstract art. “This journey for me so far is pretty close to my heart. I’m pretty passionate about creativity. I want to be blown away by what I do or at least excited by the end result,” she tells CH. “Designing something innovative has to be the best feeling.”

Manuell’s array of accessories are unique and couldn’t be more personal. She creates each artwork in her studio and works with one machinist. “I cut lengths of canvas one meter by two-and-a-half meters and paint them either hanging or flat. They can take a few days depending on the layers, sometimes over a week to complete at different stages. We then cut these up and add details where necessary, sometimes scattered and collaged over each individual bag or on top as an extra accessory detail,” she says, of her process. As a result of adding details and tweaking designs, every bag is entirely one of a kind. Making 10 to 25 bags from each base design, they are then stitched and covered in PVC, and then individually labeled and numbered. “We are up to 12,000 clutches now, which still amazes me,” Manuell says. “Every process is made locally, I have one machinist who works from her own home who I love and adore and we work closely with each other. She constructs the final clutch but everything else is made within my tiny

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Perth-based Poppy Lissiman has been making her clientele happy for some time with her super-bold and bright clutch creations. Relying heavily on striking motifs—eyeballs, dollar signs, lips and love-hearts—and plenty of metallics and sparkles, Lissiman’s creations are genuinely eye-catching. The young designer, who started her label in 2008, has just released the brand’s very first collaboration: playful and colorful clutches designed with British artist Hattie Stewart. We spoke with Lissiman about how the partnership occurred and why gaudy is good.

How did the collaboration with Hattie Stewart come about?

Like with most modern fairytales we started following each other on Instagram. I can’t remember who made the first move but we both were big fans of each other’s work and did a swap of one of Hattie’s prints for a clutch. We immediately hit it off over email when we started chatting and I put it to Hattie about doing a collab. It was the first one I had ever done, she has previously worked with House of Holland, Marc by Marc Jacobs and Adidas.

What was it about Hattie’s work that you were particularly drawn to?

It’s really different from anything else out there. She has a really distinctive style and when you look at any of her pieces they just make you smile, they’re just so delightfully cheeky.

What was the collaborative design process like?

One of the reasons I was drawn to Hattie to do a collab was because we both use similar motifs throughout our work—but very differently. For example, Hattie and I both use hearts, eyes and mouths frequently but they look vastly different. I wanted to keep going with that theme on my clutches, but inject Hattie’s style to it. I had just recently started working with digital printed faux leather which gave Hattie the chance to go c