Vintage JungleVine® Bags

The Vintage Collection contains styles found in Khmu villages when the Nature Bag Khmu/Lao Poverty Reduction Project was founded in 2006. These bags often have unusual combinations of colors, frequently bright and often lacking harmony from the perspective of western design. They are the styles most like the traditional Khmu carry bag used for thousands of years as an essential tool by a culture that gathered its food, medicine and fiber needs in the mountainside jungles. Most were made for family use and were never sold or traded. Some of the more colorful organic totes were made to be gifts, but until our Project few went to those who were not Khmu.   

Ornamentation differences between these sustainable bags represent variations in style among clusters of Khmu villages in the 5 northern provinces that have evolved over the centuries. There is some evidence of influence from a handful of attempts to commercialize the bag during the past 20 years. For instance, the Lao government commissioned the crafting of a few dozen ecofriendly bags that were gifts to heads of state at a summit of the ASEAN nations in Vientiane during the mid 2000's.