Meet Iwona Ash

We recently connected with Iwona Ash and have shared our conversation below.

Iwona, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Ever since I can remember, I have created, drawn, painted, sculpted, designed, and made things, but my greatest joy is designing fashion.

I grew up in Poland during a very dark time period. When I was sixteen, we had martial law, curfews, food stamps, friends who got arrested, and a cousin who was killed during a manifestation. During those days, I made my own clothes and started earning my first money by knitting and sewing.

I went to college in Poland and earned a degree in furniture design from the Art & Design School. Subsequently, I gradually became a writer and journalist for radio, TV, and several newspapers. As I was still active in Art & Design, I became an Art Director for the International Design Festival “Design Attack,” curating exhibitions for museums and galleries. After moving to the United States, I started my career in Los Angeles as an acquisition buyer of movies for Movie Production Companies worldwide.

After moving to the United States, I felt I needed to do something creative in addition to my day job.

Ten years ago, I got a fancy job, but to get there, I had to use public transportation and carry my things for the whole day. I needed a big, elegant, and lightweight bag as I got scoliosis as a teenager from having had to carry a heavy school bag. However, everything I could find was either way too small, too heavy, or too expensive. I looked online, but they never included the weight in the product descriptions. Because finding the right bag for me seemed to be impossible,

I started to design and make my own bags just for myself. After a while, when my friends started to notice and love my bags, my project expanded into making bags for them as well. Because of their personal and particular needs, I started to design and develop bags based on their special requirements and tastes, and test the products out on them. This allowed me to learn quite a bit about myself as well as my preferences along the way. I love leather very much, but being a vegetarian, I have a moral issue with using it. This is why I started researching what kind of leather I could use for my work without harming any animals. What I found out during my research changed my perspective on leather entirely: Because, you know, once an animal has been killed to produce food, its skin is merely a waste product that would be thrown away and therefore wasted. By using it, we are using the whole animal and not wasting this important resource. My moral issue was finally resolved, but myths about leather are strongly rooted in Western culture, which is why I would like to clarify this misconception to you all. If anyone calls you Cruella Deville because of your leather purse, you now know the truth about how I source my leather! I started with my lightweight products eight years ago. Usually, it takes about 4 years of testing and refining the bags’ designs before they are ready for production.

However, my solution consisted of reducing heavy stiffeners and hardware to a minimum and replacing heavy leather with lighter yet durable leather. All my bags are under 1 lb, sustainable, slow-fashioned, and made locally in Tucson, Arizona.

Once my first few models were ready to go, I registered my company and started to sell my products.

Someone told me one day that if people are willing to pay for your product, you have a business. So, it was last year that I decided to design and make my bags as a full-time business and establish my fashion brand.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

No bags like mine exist in the market: they are buttery, soft, colorful, and lightweight, and you can easily dress them up or down. They allow for significant variability.

I do slow, sustainable, high-quality fashion using natural materials. To my regret, the fashion industry has become the second-largest polluter in the world.

I have been reintroducing traditional materials and fabrics across different design contexts, bringing their hidden properties to the forefront.

Life is fast for modern women. She has to perform daily tasks and be exposed to a diversified environment. Her needs to comfortably perform all her jobs are often contradictory and/or unconscious, which is why she doesn’t know what she is looking for until she sees a solution. This is where my products come into play!

When I sell my products, I notice people can’t walk by without touching my bags and various dresses & blouses. Sometimes, I wish I had a hidden camera to record the expression on their faces when they feel the softness of the leather, and I hear almost the same thing from all of them: “It is so soft, buttery, light, colorful. It makes me laugh to listen to it over and over again. But I am super grateful for this experience. It gives me confidence in myself, my design, and my product.

Two years ago, I opened my first location in Venice Beach, and how big my surprise was when I learn that I earned a reward for the TOP 3 of 2025 Clothing Stores in Venice, considering that there are amazing stores and boutiques on Abbot Kinney, one of the most famous streets in the USA.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

In my opinion, if something brings you joy, it is a sign that you should get better at it. I love what I do, but it takes discipline, a lot of work, and patience.

I also had to find the courage to pursue my dream. I was told that I needed to follow and make myself invisible, wait to be discovered, and admit out loud that I have a talent, that I need to stick to one career choice, and that I need to forget my dreams.

But why? I was born with some talents and will die with them, and it does not matter if I start at the age of ten or fifty. They are examples of artists who began professional careers late in life.

Would you tell Paul Gauguin that he is too old to start painting, or Isadora Duncan that becoming a professional dancer at age nineteen is a stupid idea? So you would be wrong.

When I hear, “So, do you think you can be like those big designers?” I say they once were in my shoes, broke dreamers, and if they could succeed, I could, too.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

Unfortunately, my parents did not support my desire to become a fashion designer, so I got a degree in furniture design. I was rather good at it and still am, but this wasn’t my call. You know, you can have a talent for something, but you have no zest. This was my case. Indeed, my professional career was not a straightforward path. Something always seemed to be missing in my life, which is why one thing led me to another during my quest.

The lack of support actually taught me that if I want something, I need to go and get it with or without family or friends’ approval.

I learned my lesson, and when my husband strongly disagreed with me starting a business, I couldn’t let myself down again. Finally, I knew it had to be now or never, and no one would stop me this time around.

You see, there is more to it: it is a human right to work and pursue your talents and dreams, and I had to learn not to let anyone interfere with my desire to be who I want to be.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Istvan Vizner, Iwona Ash

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