Cruelty-free fashion
ConcordiaWORKS
JMSB grad Inder Bedi is surrounded by his handbags. The look is high-end and the product is animal-free. The company is now poised to move more aggressively into U.S. markets.
courtesy of Inder Bedi
All-vegan bags. It was an odd concept a dozen years ago, when Inder Bedi developed it for his entrepreneurship course during his last semester of marketing at the JMSB.
“I really didn’t want to do the course, but I needed it to finish. My proposal got just 77 per cent and no funding.”
But the idea stuck, and a year later, the recently converted vegetarian launched his first line of vegan bags. The Matt & Nat label has grown to include shoes and wallets, and has an office in the UK and plans to further expand into Europe and North America.
The products, manufactured in China from synthetic leathers, PVC, the more environmentally friendly PU, and other cruelty-free materials, are emblematic of an increased effort to tread lightly on the planet and its resources. In April alone the label has been featured in Lou Lou magazine, Toronto Life’s Green Living and on ETalk.
Bedi said that the company was launched in a far less green-savvy era. “People didn’t care that the products were vegan. I’m happy we made it in the fashion world first because of our designs. We’re a fashion company that happens to be vegan.”
And it is a company that happens to have a remarkable client list. Bedi says Natalie Portman and Kim Basinger have requested Matt & Nat bags for movies. He also counts Charlize Theron, Drew Barrymore, Teri Hatcher and Samuel L. Jackson among the line’s fans.
Bedi expects to eventually expand into clothing, once he has consolidated his markets. “Concordia gave a lot to me. What I really appreciated was that the faculty were people who worked in industry.”