What World Renders Cardboard Unrecognizable With Made-to-order Handbag Line

In an era of online shopping and overnight delivery, there are few sights more ubiquitous than cardboard. But one design studio is rendering the inescapable material virtually unrecognizable, transforming it from delivery vessel into main event. What World is putting a fashionable spin on the overlooked material, one woven bag at a time.

The Los Angeles brand will launch its debut made-to-order collection Dec. 8, which consists of six woven takes on cardboard that mimic the appearance of leather to a passerby, ranging from a clutch at $100 to a travel duffel bag at $999. “Most people don’t actually know they’re cardboard,” Faris Zahrah told WWD.

Zahrah cofounded What World in 2023 with his sister Grace, after one of their friends needed a purse in a pinch. Zahrah fashioned an envelope clutch out of a recycled Amazon box, with the online retail giant’s arrow logo framed in the center. “I asked for it back and was like, ‘I’ll owe you something in the future,’” he recalled. “Then we just kept making bags.”

What World is the pair’s first foray into fashion and design — but not craftsmanship. “Craft is at the center of everything that we do,” Zahrah said, adding that the impulse is rooted in part from growing up with architect parents. Accordingly, Faris and Grace apply an architectural precision to crafting What World’s bags, which don’t rely on any glue and are held together solely through weaving and stitching “at all the places where you’re putting significant force.”

Despite the linear rigidity of cardboard, there are ample curves in What World’s debut collection, from the structured round tote to the dimpled sides of the travel bag. “The weave is so beautiful because it allows for structure while still maintaining flexibility,” Zahrah says, adding that the process of making each bag begins with flattening the base material by hand using rollers. 

While the prototypes for What World began with recycled cardboard, the design duo has since switched to new cardboard to impart a more luxe feel and satin finish to their products. “The more recycled material, the more texture you’re gonna feel,” Zahrah explains, adding that the shift hasn’t altered the way they think about sustainability.  

“The benefits to the environmental cost of cardboard is that you can put it in the recycling bin, and paper is processed differently [than plastic],” Zahrah says. “In a recycling center, they’re extracting impurities out of it and basically taking it back down to a pulp. I think that’s the compelling case for cardboard as a material: It’s not gonna outlive you.”

Because of its recyclability, Zahrah says the cardboard bags offer the freedom to embrace trends without leaving a permanent trace of them. The fabric handles, which are woven through the bags, also allow customers the flexibility to partake in trends — such as choosing straps in this fall’s breakout color burgundy, only to switch them out for another shade a different season. “The initial idea of the straps was that you could send back the strap, and you can get a new bag,” Zahrah says. Because What World is opting for a made-to-order process, a relationship between the designers and customers is instantly formed upon purchasing a bag — and easy to maintain for fabric swaps. 

As for the use of seatbelt fabric as the handles, Zahrah said it was a nod to his admiration for Zurich-based upcycled accessories purveyor Freitag “turning what we conceptually view as trash into high-end craft.”

It’s the element of surprise that informs the name, What World — which Zahrah explains as coming from a place of disbelief over the use of cardboard as a design material. Given how reliant the world is on cardboard, though, Zahrah thinks it’s a timely choice. “You can make an argument for cardboard being a material of our generation, due to delivery culture,” he said. “How many trillions of dollars do we ship in cardboard? So we do see it as valuable. It has so much utility — it serves a purpose. But its purpose [has been] to deliver an object, instead of being the object.”

The handmade pieces come individually numbered but with no visible logos — a conscious choice. “I don’t think a logo should define luxury,” Zahrah says. “Craft and time and artisanship should ultimately define it.” 

When asked about the What World customer, Zahrah reflected, and later wrote in email, “What World, and specifically this collection is for rebels. For people who question the confines of how luxury has been defined for them. These are the collectors who understand that true rebellion isn’t wearing another status symbol — it’s questioning why we value certain things over others in the first place.”