ABURY Accessories · Berlin, Germany
A bag first, then a school
ABURY makes embroidered leather bags and clutches by hand in Marrakech, worked on goatskin in cactus-silk thread. Andrea Bury founded the label in Berlin in 2011 together with a foundation, which now runs the shop and funds education projects in Morocco from its sales.
An old Berber bag gave Andrea Bury the idea for ABURY in 2011, and the Berber Bag sold today still follows it: a leather shoulder bag with a fold-over flap, covered in traditional Berber patterns.
Learning the stitch
In 2012 ABURY opened a school in Marrakech where young women learn traditional leather embroidery from master artisans, and started its first production in the same year. A tailoring couple did the teaching, and twenty girls and young women learned the basics of a trade they could live from. Every bag is still stitched by hand, and no two come out quite alike.
It's not about simply going somewhere and buying a container of finished goods. It's about working on the ground with people from another culture and mixing extraordinary handwork with modern design influences.
Where the sales go
The shop is run today by the ABURY Foundation in Berlin, and its sales pay for the foundation's projects. In Douar Anzal, a Berber village about an hour and a half outside Marrakech, that means a preschool for children aged three to six and reading and writing classes for women. In Marrakech itself, the ABURY Hospitality Academy began in September 2025: nine months of hotel training for young women.
Every Berber Bag holds two to three days of a seamstress's paid work.
