Why Are Craft-Conscious Companies Crazy for This Little-Known Bag Brand?
You're probably not terribly familiar with Brady, a bag-making imprint founded in Birmingham in 1887, unless you're really up on historic British brands. Or unless you're a Japanese clothing nerd.
Brady's humble canvas carryalls are so popular in Japan that its bags, still produced by hand in the small town of Walsall, are a consistent source of collaborations for craft-conscious companies like flora-obsessed retailer BIOTOP and AURALEE, which requisitioned Brady for not one but two separate seasonal team-ups.
And nonnative only just partnered with brady for another round of collaborative bags in March 2025, cooking up shoulder bags cut from Brady's signature canvas and fitted with the woven mesh once utilized by British hunters lugging game.
Brady even maintains a dedicated Japanese website to field local interest, which runs rampant. Even the Japanese owners of excellent New York vintage shop Front General Store import Brady's bags on occasion.
What's the appeal? In a word: Authenticity.
Of the many factors that animate Japanese garmentos, genuine legacy and craft reign supreme. There is nothing more meaningful because there is nothing more difficult to attain. Money can buy attention, be that attention to detail or attention for attention's sake. But heritage must be earned. You can't fake it.
This is why labels like Converse and Brooks Brothers, taken for granted in America, remain vaunted in Japan. And why an edgy young label like Midorikawa would collaborate with a half-century-old sockmaker. Or why Japan-only The North Face goes so hard. It's even why — in simplified terms — Japan still has the most Supreme stores of any single country and is the only place where Barneys New York continues to operate.
Japan has Brady fever because Brady has only ever produced classically trend-free bags for nearly 150 years. Its craft is ethical and, above all, authentic.
This is to the credit of Japanese shoppers, who've been trained to not merely spot but celebrate this sort of thing since the days of Made in U.S.A, while Americans were tossing out their Bean bags to make room for polyester slacks.
The trend continues to this day: Where most Americans continue to overlook the humble artistry of local makers like Jutta Neumann and Aurora Shoes, Japanese buyers have been deservingly pedestaling them as purveyors of true craft for decades.
So it goes for Brady, a former hunting gear brand reborn as the subject of magazine spreads and stylish editorials. And people wonder why all the cool stuff only happens in Japan.
