Local designer creates inner tube handbags - San Antonio Express

August, the hottest month in South Texas, is an ideal time to float in an inner tube, and thanks to handbag designer Michelle Karam^[1] , it's the best time to wear one.

Made with the same rubber as the inner tubes that drift down the Comal and Guadalupe rivers, Karam's recycled handbags are bringing the heat. They're fast sellers this summer at Sloan/Hall, an upscale lifestyle shop in Alamo Heights where they are found exclusively.

“It's not really your typical, everyday handbag,” Karam, 42, said. “You don't see these types of handbags, this style, everywhere.”

Karam got the idea to recycle inner tubes while working at MK1 Construction Services^[2] , the company she owns with her husband, Paul Karam. When it comes time to replace the big tires on the company's delivery trucks, the inner tubes inside them are often taken to landfills, Karam said.

“I saw this opportunity and thought, 'What could I do with this type of material?'” Karam said.

So she started making handbags.

For a little more than a year, Karam has been creating rubber coin purses, clutches, totes, shoulder bags and jewelry in her home office.

With a style she calls traditional but edgy, the bags resemble leather and come in interesting geometric shapes. She tries to use one piece of inner tube for each handbag, cutting and stitching it together by hand using rubber strips as thread.

Several of the handbags are naturally embellished with distinguishing marks, such as a “Made in the USA” stamp or a blue stripe.

Karam also adorns handbags with rubber tassels topped with hexagon nuts, the sort found on tire rims. Edges of other bags feature knots reminiscent of barbed wire.

“A little attitude, a little edge can make a big statement,” she said.

Arthur Perez^[3] , Sloan/Hall's store manager, is a fan of the bags he said are unique and stylish.

“You see the bags, and you're immediately drawn to them. They look like leather, and then you see them and they're actually rubber.”

Best of all, they're “things we've never seen before.”

And customers are responding favorably, he said. The bags cost $65 to $250.

Karam also has branched into jewelry with rubber necklaces ($40) and bracelets ($30). Each is a long rubber strip with tassel-adorned ends and is multifunctional, doubling as a belt or anklet. She's thinking about a limited men's line of wallets and belts, too.

“Everyone is intrigued,” Perez said. What makes Karam's handbags special, he added, is “definitely the whole idea of taking something that can be found anywhere and turning it into something functional.”

Karam said she hopes her work will inspire others to reuse, reclaim and recycle.

“Definitely, recycling is the way to go,” she said.

emiller@express-news.net

References

1. ^{^} Michelle Karam (www.mysanantonio.com)


2. ^{^} MK1 Construction Services (www.mysanantonio.com)


3. ^{^} Arthur Perez (www.mysanantonio.com)