Her bags typically sell out within 10 to 15 minutes each month. Once, they were even snapped up in three minutes. Shoppers who were a tad too slow to check out lost their cart.

Meet Tey Pei Hwa, founder and solopreneur of homegrown kiss-lock bag brand Rags to Peaches. 

She is neither a hotshot designer nor a luxury brand owner. She has no marketing budget or factory labour.

Every month, the 39-year-old simply shuts herself in her small studio making 40 to 50 of these bags, known as gamaguchis. Every cut and every stitch is made by her.

Don’t expect a discounted clearance sale for this bag brand. Every Rags to Peaches bag has sold out since Tey started making them in 2020. Customers even write lengthy messages telling her how her bags “spark joy” and help them get through tough seasons in their lives.

A KISS-LOCK LOVE STORY

It all began when Tey chanced upon an unobtrusive gamaguchi shop in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto, Japan, during her travels, in 2012.

“Everything was so pretty and elegant I felt like I struck a gold mine,” she told CNA Women.

“There is magic in the simplicity of gamaguchis – you don’t need anything to secure it, just a clasp. I thought to myself: One day, I want to sew this.”

Then an English Literature teacher, Tey returned to the shop every year to buy gamaguchis – it became the only bag she...