Ally Capellino
Instagram: @allycapellino_official @allycapellino_plasticchairs
I bought my first Ally Capellino bag, which I’ve since sadly lost, back in 2003 ..... it was a large Freddie waxed holdall! I loved that bag. It travelled the world with me.
I had met Ally several years before that, although there was already a connection through my mum who was a milliner and pattern cutter, Joan Biggs.
Ally and I became good friends and on my trips back to London, as a stop off from working globally, I would often stay with her and we’d cook supper together.
Since then I have had leather laptop cases and many a waxed crossbody bag. I don’t leave the house without one!
It holds everything I need..
This is a selection of old and new bags that I need to do some patchwork on - where I’ve scuffed them too often!
I’ve also had the pleasure to buy bags as gifts for mum and my lady Lucy.
Lucy is a jewellery designer/maker. Explore her work at:
Instagram: @lucyburkejewellery @annemorganjewellery
Anyway back to Ally, she has helped and supported me over the years absolutely, and for that I am very grateful to her.
Her bags are constantly changing, and now use many recycled materials.
She doesn’t stop!
This article about Ally’s recent trip to India just makes me want to go back!
Keep reading below..
Hello Ally: travels in India
Ally Capellino founder Alison Lloyd shares some of her favourite snaps from trips to India, and the stories behind them.
The colours are so over-saturated, and there’s no holding back. It’s unexpected — like houses painted bonkers colours. I wouldn’t say I make direct links between things I’ve seen and designs I go on to create, but I do always come back feeling inspired by the intensity and unexpected combinations. That shows up in the bright coloured zip on a bag, or a less obvious colour combination. And pink! They’re good at pink. Even the horses' hooves get a lick of pink at this wedding in Jaipur.
I keep going back to India because it’s very accessible, and I like the people. I like the way they get excited about things like festivals, where there is no provision for the fact that daily life is also trying to happen, resulting in chaotic traffic situations mixing with some worship of a god or two.
I love repeating patterns, like these paan leaves so beautifully arranged. Some things are so perfect and then other things are so abandoned and not cared for at all.
My first trip to India was around 1980. We had just shown our very first Ally Capellino collection and I was approached by Giorgio Kauten to do some work out there. He was like the Italian Steven Marks, and a bit of a 60’s hippy. I did some madras checked dresses for him, which did very well. The design crew (a couple of Italians and a Dutch girl) were fed at his house every evening. His Indian cook made the best pasta and the three-mango ice cream! We had to go to a hotel if we wanted Indian food.
In Tamil Nadu, the workmen wear lungis in blue madras check.
I went with my dad. We arrived at night and the mingled smell of dung, kerosene and incense in the hot air has stuck with me ever since. Dad wanted to go because his father had worked for the Times of India. He enjoyed getting around on buses and chatting to everybody. He went out doing that while I went to the factories and worked with the ‘master’. This was a pattern cutter who kept no patterns but just worked by eye, meaning that alterations-to-fit were very hit and miss. One favourite place is Jodpur, where everything is painted blue, and the roads are so narrow they had to create special rickshaws that could fit down them.
Asleep in his rickshaw.
One favourite place is Jodpur, where everything is painted blue, and the roads are so narrow they had to create special rickshaws that could fit down them.
I’ve been to India around 20 times, often for work but otherwise for pleasure. With friends, my dad, my son, my daughter. In fact we went together with their better halves for my 60th. I first went in 1980 and most recently 2023. I haven’t finished yet, there’s more to see…
© AllyCapellino