Sarjaa

About Sarjaa

Sarjaa is a Chennai-based label reimagining what a luxury handbag can be made of. Founded by Anjana Arjun, a Parsons School of Design graduate who spent years working with established fashion houses before returning to India, Sarjaa was built on a simple but demanding idea: a handbag should carry both style and responsibility. Working alongside her sister Aishwarya during the brand’s early ideation, Anjana set out to prove that plant-based materials could match — not just imitate — the look and feel of traditional leather, without the environmental cost that comes with it.

At the heart of every Sarjaa piece is a rejection of two default options in fashion: animal leather and synthetic “vegan leather.” The brand is vocal about the fact that most vegan leather is really PVC or polyurethane in disguise, shedding microplastics and consuming heavy resources in production. Instead, Sarjaa sources fruit and plant-based leather — apple leather made from juice-industry waste, cactus leather that needs comparatively little water to grow and process, and pineapple leather derived from agricultural byproduct fibres. These materials are paired with organic cotton for linings and dust bags, Eri silk (produced without harming silkworms), and hardware finished in recycled aluminium, brass, and zinc alloy rather than virgin metal. Sarjaa states that its production processes are currently about 90% sustainable, with the stated goal of closing that final gap over time — a level of transparency about work-in-progress sustainability that Prakati values over blanket claims of perfection.

Each bag is handcrafted in small batches by a team of more than ten master artisans in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The process runs through pattern cutting, layering of the plant-based material, stitching with inner linings, edge coloring, and final reversal and shaping — the same multi-step construction used in traditional leather goods, just built on a different raw material. Because production happens in small runs rather than at mass-manufacturing scale, Sarjaa avoids the overproduction and inventory waste that dogs much of the accessories industry. Dyeing is done with organic dyes formulated to use less water than conventional treatments, and the brand has been transparent about wanting to keep refining this process rather than presenting it as a finished, perfect system.

The sustainability thinking extends past the bag itself into how it arrives. Packaging is made from recyclable art board and paper, dust bags are organic cotton, and even the product tags are plantable seed paper that can be grown into herbs or flowering plants once the packaging has served its purpose. Sarjaa also publishes guidance on recycling or repairing its products at end-of-life, pointing customers to local repair shops and recycling partners rather than encouraging disposal and repurchase. This attention to the full lifecycle of a product — not just the materials it starts with — is part of what distinguishes a genuinely considered sustainable fashion brand from one that stops at a single marketing claim.

The product range spans structured totes (the Bhoomi in small and medium sizes), a compact Sarjaa Pouch, and a rotating line of named silhouettes — Dua, Kala, Kenti, Pracheen, Punya, and Sebu among them — that lean into clean lines, sculptural chain hardware, and a colour palette built around versatility rather than trend cycles. The brand’s tagline, “a handle on the future,” captures its underlying pitch: a handbag category typically associated with either fast-fashion turnover or resource-heavy leather tanning, made instead from upcycled fruit waste and designed to be repaired and reused rather than replaced. Sarjaa positions its bags as everyday luxury pieces rather than occasion-only accessories, meant to be used, cared for, and eventually mended instead of discarded.

Sarjaa fits within Prakati’s growing list of homegrown alternatives in sustainable fashion and accessories, alongside other Indian labels working with plant-based and upcycled materials. For shoppers exploring sustainable fashion options, the brand offers a rare combination in the Indian accessories market: a premium handbag aesthetic built entirely on traceable, plant-derived inputs rather than animal leather or plastic-based substitutes. By sourcing raw material from agricultural and juice-industry waste streams, Sarjaa also gives an existing waste product a second commercial life rather than drawing on freshly extracted resources — a form of upcycling that runs quietly through the entire supply chain, from the leather itself down to the seed-paper hangtag.

Sarjaa Designs Private Limited is based out of R.A Puram in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and ships its handbags across India.