photography WILLIAM E. WRIGHT
When I meet Sally Kite over Zoom, she’s in Bristol, a little dazed from a head cold but glowing with the kind of calm intensity that comes from total creative control.
Kite is the mind (and muscle) behind Six95, the emerging bag brand whose name literally comes from the value of the coins she used to stud her first prototype—six pounds and ninety-five pence. “I’d rescued a piece of real python in the studio from my old job,” she says. “I’d had it in my attic for years and just made something out of what I had. Plus some coins lying around.”
That moment of resourcefulness—a scrap of luxury, some loose change, and a bit of mischief—became the foundation of a label that sits somewhere between fine art and fashion. “I never set out to start a bag brand,” she insists. “It was about making an object. Something sculptural, with emotion.” She’s a designer obsessed with precision and imperfection in equal measure—the clean line and the hammer mark, the idea and the hand that made it
After spending five years designing bags and small leather goods for Jimmy Choo, Kite moved back to her hometown of Bristol just before the pandemic, swapping London polish for something rougher around the edges. “Bristol’s shaped me massively,” she says. “It’s left-wing, anti-fashion, gritty. I used to resist that energy, but now I lean into it.” Her bags reflect that duality. They’re minimal but decorative, delicate yet practical. “I love how Western wear is made for hard work but is still so ornamental,” she adds. “That’s what I’m trying to capture. It’s decoration without preciousness.”
Each design starts from the fewest possible pattern pieces (“the tote is basically two [pieces]”), but Kite’s handwork is meticulous: Cutting, bonding, drilling, riveting, burnishing. Even the labels are hand-punched. “The evidence of the hand is really important,” she says. “It’s about honesty in the make.”
Kite’s visual language comes from contemporary art more than traditional fashion. She cites Sarah Lucas and Louise Bourgeois as touchpoints; artists who mix sensuality and structure, humor and pain. “I approach it like an artist might,” she says. “A bag is a sculptural object. It exists off the body as much as on it.”
The coins that define Six95’s look began as pure happenstance but have become something symbolic. “There’s a tongue-in-cheek side,” she admits. “It’s money, but it’s not worth much. Six-ninety-five isn’t grand—it’s small change made precious.” That wit and craft have caught attention fast. Through art director Bruce Usher, Kite met Jake Burt, co-creative director of Stefan Cooke, who invited her to create an exclusive run of bags for Jake’s, his London concept store. “It all happened organically,” she says. “I didn’t plan any of this—it just snowballed.”
Within a year, she was showing alongside Stefan Cooke in Paris showrooms and picked up by Dover Street Market in London and Paris, plus boutiques in Japan, South Korea, and Australia. “I’ve actually had to close my books for now,” she laughs. “I’m working with small UK workshops because I can’t make them all myself anymore.”
Still, she’s careful not to lose what makes the brand special. “My goal is to keep the spirit—the handmade feel, the artistic angle. I’m not in a rush to commercialize it. I just want to collaborate with great people and keep it honest.” There’s something refreshing about Kite’s clarity. Six95 isn’t trying to be the next big luxury label; it’s redefining value in real time, making poetry out of practicality, turning spare change into something that quietly gleams.
Before we sign off, she holds up her tools to the camera. There’s a press, a few punched labels, a small pile of shiny coins. “It’s simple,” she smiles. “Low intervention, minimal shapes, a bit of humor. It should look easy—even when it’s not.”