Hype Specialist Luggage is a small company based in West Yorkshire, started in 2010 by founder Paul Holmes. Holmes lived in South East Asia for around 10 years, where he was manufacturing shooting and hunting accessories. He supplied firearm manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers in the USA, Australia, Canada, Europe and the UK, at one point was supplying in excess of 16,000 gun cases a year.
A few years ago, he had a problem with a Chinese factory. He paid a huge deposit and after numerous delays and excuses, no product materialised, the end result was that he almost went broke. The products he had originally developed were now being copied all over and after what had gone on, and problems he'd seen other buyers have, he had a huge lack of confidence in China and looked for a new opportunity.
Looking at the market place and available shooting accessories product, he noticed there were very few ‘high end’ manufacturers. There were lots of ‘pile em high, sell em cheap, throwaway’ products coming in from Asia or Eastern Europe, and there were a few high end traditionally designed products, but there was very little with subtle, unique design features, products with character and soul.
Over a period of around 18-24 months he sourced suppliers and worked with them to achieve the quality he was looking for, "We had a very specific idea of what we wanted and developed a small range of shooting accessory products, which we presented to a select number of potential clients. " Holmes says "On one visit, I had my own personal bag, developed as a one off because I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted anywhere – I used to do a huge amount of travelling around the world from Asia – so I made one to my preference. The client, who also does quite a lot of travelling, took a shine to my bag. ‘I’ve been looking for a bag like this for 20 years’ he said, ‘can you make me one, and I think we could sell them easily?’. That was the start of us developing a range of lifestyle and travel luggage."
TheChicGeek Says - Here you are paying for the quality of the bag and not the designer name. Subtle branding makes Hype bags standout for their design and proportion. As designer bags become silly expensive this is a great price point for something of quality made in the UK.
Top - 'Hastings' - Dowel Bag - £795
Bottom - 'Upton' - Relaxed Holdall - £590