During the Covid Pandemic in Ireland, I found myself walking all over my local area. I would usually carry a tote bag with my sketchbook and pencil case as well as any other bits and bobs. One faithful April day I set my tote bag down and somehow my favourite pencil rolled out and was never seen again. It became apparent to me that the giant opening in a tote bag is just not secure even though I love its portability and ease of use.

I decided to begin brainstorming how to fix this conundrum and that is when I decided to try and sew a zipper onto the tote bag. I managed to find a friend who would lend me a sewing machine and found someone selling 50 zips second-hand. I wanted to make sure that the bags were sustainably sourced and I worked with a local vinyl printer to print the illustrations onto the bags. And this is how the Zote was born, a tote bag with a zip. It was a great experience designing, sourcing, manufacturing and shipping them out to customers all over Ireland and the UK.