Anybag: How Alex Dabagh is transforming New York trash into fashion staples

At a Flatiron leather manufacturer that has been producing handmade goods for decades, an innovative passion project that is targeting New York City’s plastic crisis is growing day by day. Founder Alex Dabagh is carving out his own space in fashion with Anybag, revolutionising textile creation through the reinvention of single use plastic.

Amid a slew of purported sustainability initiatives and greenwashed marketing, Anybag claims to create fully recycled tote bags and accessories on a purely zero waste model. Through collecting plastic bags from a range of secondhand sources, Dabagh is targeting both the city’s procurement of plastic waste and fashion’s ecological ramifications within his multi-generational, family-owned factory.

As far as the types of plastic that are given a new life at Anybag, Dabagh does not discriminate; polybag, film wrap, water bottle casements, bread bags, grocery carriers, and sanitation product packaging can be woven into an all-new textile.

A glimpse into New York City plastic

According to the city’s Department of Sanitation, over 20,000 tons of plastic foodware are discarded each year, consequently contaminating waters, filling landfills, and becoming street litter. This pollution, coupled with the eco-charged state of the fashion industry, led Dabagh to question his role in it all. “There’s 8.5 million people here in New York City, and I thought: ‘Where is that trash going?’”

Dabagh’s musings prompted him to mobilise the family business in a new direction, though faced with incredulity by his existing staff and father, who founded the primary company Park Avenue International in 1982. “I saw a different opportunity and vision,” said Dabagh. “Let’s take plastic and see what we can do with it. If we can weave leather, why can’t we do this out of plastic?”

Anybag’s inception

In early American education, impressionable students are taught the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle, an environmentalist phrase coined in the 1970s to combat the surge of consumer waste. This widely adopted concept was accepted as an individualistic solution to climate change, which is now known to have little effect on the plastic crisis due to the challenges of mixed recycling. As a result, Dabagh, equipped with his leathersmith skills and inherent resourcefulness, sparked the creation of the Anybag in 2020.

After sourcing a range of plastic from his inner circle, Dabagh joined up with over a dozen local schools to source his desired material. This kind of partnership would transform into one of the many pillars of the company, as Dabagh relies on others’ trash to fulfil his mission.

Making trash into treasure

Surrounded by spinning machinery and collected plastic at the ready, making the Anybag is not much different from any of the leather produced in the factory. “Making the bag is the easy part,” said Dabagh on the process of creation.

From taping to folding to heat sealing, there are several steps that go into making a novel plastic textile, many of which were discovered through trial and error. “Making the textile where all the effort goes into it,” said Dabagh, as the team is currently limited to making 16 bags a day. With a price range of 38 dollars to 248 dollars across the brand, each Anybag is handcrafted and made to last. Despite using an unconventional material, the luxury price point is reflected by the expertise that goes into it.

In addition to Dabagh himself, the Anybag makers are New York City artisans with four decades of experience in leather wares that typically sell for up to 4,000 dollars to Park Avenue International’s clients. “We are in the heart of Manhattan doing this; what we’re doing is not cheap,” said Dabagh. “The craftsmanship is no different…What we’re doing with the plastic and trash is to regenerate it, reprocess it, and give it that more expensive look and feel.”

Along with reimagining external plastic waste that gets brought into the factory, Dabagh is finding ways to re-utilize internal dregs, which account for around 10 percent of scraps and selvedge that doesn’t get put into the Anybag as a result of construction restraints. The “waste of the waste” can become a wallet or passport holder in attempts to be ever-more circular.

A lifetime of design

Each Anybag features a completely random design due to the assortment of plastic included, effectively telling the story of where in New York City it originated. The current core styles—Classic, Mini, Weekender—were all created with an intuitively utilitarian focus, as tote bags are a city wardrobe staple.

Dabagh intentionally avoided over-designing the Anybag to instead focus on the story that can be told with it. As any damaged bag can be brought back to the brand for restoration, Dabagh is committed to the mission of establishing a future of increased sustainability. “To be sustainable, you have to use what is available and not create something new; use what we’re buried in.”

The business model

According to Dabagh, there are three elements of the business that keep it afloat: direct-to-consumer sale with the Anybag product, a service of analysing metrics and data, offsetting a client’s plastic usage for shareholders, and the potential sale of fabric back to the client.

Collaborations have always been a major part of the Anybag story. Earlier this June, Anybag teamed up with Madewell to produce two upcycled totes exclusive to the retailer. This recent collaboration is a part of an extensive portfolio that already includes the likes of Adidas and Kora Organics, Miranda Kerr’s beauty brand.

“There’s no margin on this. It’s all about visibility right now,” said Dabagh. As the fairly new startup is still finding its footing, the real profit will roll in when Dabagh masters the automation of the production process.

In addition to consumer-forward production, Anybag creates custom bags made for internal business practices to eliminate the need for any plastic. In a partnership with Ralph Lauren, the brand took all plastic out of the American brand’s New York offices and turned it into the durable Weekender and Classic totes, intended for the transportation of clothing samples and various administrative tasks.

Dabagh hopes to offer similar services to any and all kinds of businesses from grocery store chains to designer brands. To him, the upfront cost is ultimately worth the longevity of the product, and avoiding new plastic use is paramount.

From floor sweeps to mass recycling, Dabagh is pushing for companies to reimagine how waste can be transformed, all in all wanting to “revolutionise the way the fashion industry discards any and every textile that comes out of factories; we want to put it back into use instead of sending it to a landfill.”

The future of Anybag

Anybag is on the brink of much anticipated growth, with a move to Brooklyn underway. This relocation will increase the capacity, scalability, space, and volume of plastic that can be turned into bags, marking the evolution Dabagh is preparing for—more product means more impact, as “building the factory up and building the community all comes back to Anybag.”

Along with plans for a bigger space, Dabagh is eager to expand into other categories from ready-to-wear to home decor. The expansion of the textile itself is also in the works. “It’s not just plastic anymore, it’s any textile and fabric we can regenerate,” said Dabagh, who discovered he can use anything from excess fabrics to parachute material to create new items with his process.

“People see waste. I see an opportunity,” said Dabagh. As plastic is often fated to become wasted ephemera, Dabagh is creating heirlooms out of it, and will unrelentingly find more ways to do so.