“Old bag” might be pejorative to some, but for Thierry Andretta, it’s the ultimate compliment.wants his customers to buy a bag for life. If it breaks, they can bring it back for repair – forever. And if, at some stage, they would like to sell it, they can do that, too, through Mulberry’s own resale program.It’s part of what Andretta and Mulberry call Made to Last, an ambitious project launched last year, for the brand’s 50th anniversary, in its bid to become carbon neutral by 2035.
“Mulberry has been talking about sustainability for a very long time,” he says. “In 1971, nobody was using that word, but it’s what we were doing. We made in England. We cut down on waste.” “When I joined the company we were a little shy in communicating [about] a program we called Repair Centre,” he says. “I said to the team, ‘This is not a repair centre. These bags are coming back because the owners love them, and want to keep them forever.’ This is a great story. It is not a gimmick. Let’s call it Lifetime Service. That’s what it really is.”