More than just a Bag

AT FIRST glance, S.C. Vizcarra is in the business of making and exporting some of the best bags and home accessories the Philippines has to offer. But scratch the surface and you see a bigger purpose–to uplift the lives of the people who painstakingly craft these things of beauty.

Hidden behind a nondescript gate along Roxas Boulevard are the factory and showroom of a company that saw its start in 1925 from a woman’s talent and love for embroidery. "Mommy was known for embroidery. She was really good at it," says Vicky Vizcarra Amalingan, daughter of the woman who started it all and the current captain of the ship. "She came from a poor family and did embroidery for rich families. They got to love her and they started her on something and it evolved into what it is right now."

What it is right now is a manufacturer of world-class home accessories and bags that will take the breath of any bag lover away. A walk around the showroom reduces one’s vocabulary to "oohs" and "ahhs." And let’s not even talk about trying to pick just one favorite bag. It is a task some would consider a near impossibility.

But the company’s products are more than just pretty faces. Behind their aesthetically pleasing facades is uncompromising quality that together have impressed high-end buyers. Ninety percent of the company’s exports are shipped to the Japanese market whose quality standards are probably the strictest in the world.

"We’d like to make the Filipinos proud. And we’d like to make our workers proud because then they will realize that what we’ve been telling them is right–that whatever talents they have should be used in the best possible way. If you’re going to make a bag, make it the best bag you can do," Vicky says with almost missionary zeal.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing though. When Vicky took the helm four years ago, the company produced only housewares and was on the verge of closing shop. "This was the time when China was really getting very strong in the market," recalls Vicky. But it was also the time when they were invited by a Japanese group to join an ASEAN fair in Japan where she was asked if it would be possible for them to develop fashion accessories. That was in April, and the next event was in June. The month in between was spent developing samples of bags–a product they had no previous experience with and had absolutely no knowledge of.

Hard work and determination paid off in the form of orders totaling US$287,000. Beginner’s luck? Hardly. Two years into the venture, they won the Katha award for Best Design during CITEM’s Manila F.A.M.E. International for their very novel Tekawitha (named after the first American Indian saint) bag.

"That was a design that I was trying to do but it was a mistake" she laughs. "I wanted to do it differently but it turned out like that. After only a year of doing bags, it wasn’t bad that we won!"

Three years after their first bags were born, the originality, ingenuity and quality of the products made the company the only bag manufacturer to exhibit in the main hall of the recently concluded Manila F.A.M.E. And, to date, no buyer has left the showroom without placing an order.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of the company’s ingenuity is their woven rattan pillow. It is also perhaps a great example of Vicky’s determination to see a new idea come to life. Who would have thought that rattan, normally seen as furniture, bags and the like, can actually be made into pillows?

"If there is anything I don’t like it’s to be told that it can’t be done," relates Vicky, referring to people saying that the rattan would crack. "But we tried and it worked," passing the company’s informal 257-pound test. Indeed it did–so well in fact that some of these pillows bear the Armani Casa label. Butopycats, beware! This pillow is a patented design. "If there is anything that I patented–and it cost me an arm and a leg, I think about US$20,000–that would be the pillows. Because anybody can do that," Vicky states.

It wouldn’t be incorrect to assume that a business’s main mission is to succeed. After all, who in their right mind would start a business with the intent to fail? But S.C. Vizcarra’s bigger mission is to improve the overall quality of the lives of the people who work with the company. Vicky credits the Lord for the company’s success and shares the fruits with the workers. When she took over the company, they started a three o’clock company-wide prayer, and though the employees are not of one faith, they do pray together. They also hear mass together, including the children of the workers, every Saturday afternoon.

"It pays to invest in God," she smiles. The workers and their families live on the property behind the factory. Some of the children have been sent to school–some have already earned college degrees. And with the goal of enabling their people to broaden their horizons and to see the bigger picture, some of them have traveled to Hong Kong and Japan on business trips. "There is a change in their mind set and you see it in their work," Vicky says of the positive results of their efforts to uplift lives.

I walked into the showroom ready for a mind-boggling visual treat, ready to ooh and ahh at the pieces that most likely have changed the world’s perception of Filipino bags. But somewhere between the oohing and the ahhing I started seeing these bags as more than just bags. I started seeing them as pieces to be appreciated not only for what they are and the purpose they serve, but also as instruments to a better life for those whose hands worked to craft them so beautifully.