In a city where trends come and go with the season, East Vancouver’s Erin Templeton has built her whole practice around the opposite idea: things that are made to last.
Templeton designs and makes bags and accessories out of her East Vancouver studio, and the throughline in her work is materials over marketing. Quality leather, careful construction, and pieces built to hold up to years of actual daily use rather than a single Instagram cycle. It’s the kind of craft that doesn’t shout — it just quietly outlasts whatever’s trending.
That ethos puts her in good company. East Vancouver has long been home to a scene of independent makers — leatherworkers, ceramicists, small-batch designers — who’ve built their businesses on the same premise: buy less, buy better, and buy from someone whose name you actually know. In an industry dominated by fast fashion and disposable accessories, a maker who designs for durability first is doing something quietly countercultural.
Supporting a maker like Templeton isn’t just about getting a better-made bag — it’s a vote for keeping East Vancouver’s independent design scene intact, at a time when small studios are increasingly squeezed by rising costs. Every bag that leaves her studio is also a bag that isn’t headed to a landfill in a year, which matters more with every passing fast-fashion cycle.
Got a favourite East Van maker we should be spotlighting next? Drop their name in the comments — we’re always looking for the next local talent to feature.
