Designer Hannah Glenn makes pieces that remind us of fashion's resonance beyond the garment; it too can have heart and soul—and extremities. Known for her beloved "Hand" bags—purses cut in the literal silhouette of a hand—Glenn’s oeuvre is idiosyncratic, ranging from her earliest mesh bags featuring beaded fruits and flowers to her ruffled silhouette.
“I think the through-line between all my bags has been taking familiar objects and motifs and recontextualizing them in bag form,” she says.
The same idea extends to Glenn’s mainstay Hand bag, whose inception was almost instinctive. "I was thinking about the word 'handbag,'" she reflects. "You know when you say something a few times over and over again, and it almost starts becoming a new word in your brain? I started to think: What if there was a 'hand' bag?" Glenn sketched the concept quickly, feeling that she might be onto something. "Usually, I have an idea, and I wait to make it, but [in this case] I needed to see what this looked like. I liked it instantly." She launched the style on Valentine’s Day in 2022.
Product offering aside, Glenn’s overarching mission is simple: "I want to make things that are special and that people can have for their whole life—not just something that's churned out with no thought of where it ultimately ends up." In Glenn's studio, you'll find similar attention to detail. She describes a setting with living flowers and boxes of fabrics. Podcasts and music play throughout the space. "I like to have little things around," she says. "My grandma had this antique pin cushion that's sterling silver with a velvet top, which I like to use."
As it happens, Glenn's family has always had an enduring appreciation for fashion. "Both my grandmas were really talented seamstresses and would knit and make all their own stuff," she reflects. Her mother likes to tell a story from Glenn's childhood of being unable to pass by a storefront in peace because her daughter was enamored with the clothing in the window displays. "Growing up, I always wanted to be a fashion designer," she says. "I don't know if it was the time, but that idea of moving to New York and doing fashion—being a fashion girlie—was what I was going to do. I never really thought about anything else."
Glenn eventually made it to New York, where she studied at the renowned Parsons School of Design. Before that, her story traversed the globe. Born in Ireland, Glenn relocated to Lake Oswego, Oregon, when she was two before heading east for college. While she admits to disliking her surroundings while growing up, Glenn can now better appreciate Oregon's sensibility. "I've moved a lot in my life," she says. "Maybe once I leave a place, it's easier to see it for what it was. I wonder if it does impact my design; I think it probably does!"
After her stint in New York, Glenn moved to London in 2017, where she interned and worked for various brands. Behind the scenes, Glenn was also casually making bags and selling them via Instagram. After being laid off from her job during the pandemic, she took it as a sign to commit to her namesake label. She ramped up her efforts and eventually found a nice cadence in monthly drops. "I shifted to doing the [monthly] drops because I could make fewer things but in more fabrics."
Glenn often found herself disappointed by many of the practices she witnessed in the industry and decided to put sustainability at the forefront of her endeavors. "I just thought it was really important to be practical. Why am I making this? Does the earth need this? Not that the earth needs my bags, but by using sustainable things and deadstock fabrics, at least I'm [working] with something that already exists." She caveats that with sustainability and design, "you're never quite sure if you're one hundred percent doing the right thing. My philosophy is to try to do the best I can with the circumstance I'm in."
These days, silk and velvet are often on rotation, though she notes that canvas and beading are on her mind. Glenn's signature hand motif has also grown to encompass different sizes, fabrics, colorways, and adjacent styles like ribbons. Overall, she says that she likes hands because they're "familiar." As she puts it, "They're your connection to the world; you do everything with them."
She continues, "I've mentioned my grandma a lot in this conversation, but one of my grandmas would always talk about how beautiful her hands were. That was a thing in our family—the women had really nice long fingers and nice hands." Glenn also recalls drawing hands in her notebook as practice before attending art school. "I think hands have just been a recurring thing, and I feel like everybody who does anything artistic has things they return to."
In a world that leaves little time for paying quality attention, there's something to be said about Glenn's clarity. Designers like her are fashioning a conscious approach in an industry often rooted in fleeting fads and trends. In many ways, Glenn's Hand bags pay homage to longevity—humanity—and the inextricable connection between design and the senses. "I've come to realize over the last few years that good design or art or whatever it is needs to satisfy some [physical] sense in some way. There needs to be something challenging but also comforting at the same time." I couldn't have said it better myself, so I'll just put my hands together for the inspiring Hannah Glenn.