CLEVERSCENE is a small, independent handbag company dedicated to quality designs using repurposed materials. Every bag is handmade by myself, Evon Cassier. I have always been a “repurposer” of sorts beginning as a child with old hand-me-downs and transforming them into new fashions with my mother’s sewing machine. Making handbags from thrift store garments is a natural extension of what I did as a child. I never intended to start a handbag company. I simply intended to make a bag for myself using inexpensive yet quality materials. I loved it so much that I never stopped making them and CLEVERSCENE was born.

Each of my bags began life as something else; a pair of jeans, a dress shirt, a sport coat, a tie. I have discovered a passion for reusing materials but without compromising detail, style, or function. I expect these qualities in anything new that I purchase and I would expect nothing less from the bags that I design. I am inspired by the challenge of taking the “ordinary” and making it extraordinary. My hope is that my bags are conversation pieces and that they inspire each of us to take a second look at the things we throw away.

My process is very experimental. I start with a vision and I just dive in. Because of this, I have had some winners and some losers but because every bag is unique I get to quietly put away the losers and pretend they never existed! Fortunately for me this process has saved me the heartache of having a real design nightmare. (But I did once make an Elvis costume for my son when he was 6 months old. It was a white jumpsuit with all the bling and he had a full head of hair combed back to look like The King. Sadly several people commented that he looked like an adorable Liberace. Not at all what I intended but hardly a nightmare!)

My greatest achievement in designing handbags is the example that I am setting for my children. I have taken a passion and turned it into a viable business that will hopefully sustain us for years to come. If I inspire them to do the same, then it will all have been worth it.