Why I Left Berlin to Build a Sustainable Bag Brand in Portugal

Coneli was not born in a boardroom or from a business plan. It was born from a gap — the kind you notice when you are a working mother trying to find a bag that is beautiful, functional, honestly made, and does not compromise on the things you care about.

After a decade in marketing and business development in Berlin’s startup world, I moved to Portugal and did something that made complete sense to me, and looked slightly mad from the outside. I built a brand from scratch.

This is that story.

Berlin: The Career That Built the Foundation

Before Coneli, there was Berlin. Over ten years working in marketing, sales, and business development — building brands, launching products, working inside fast-moving companies that were always chasing the next thing.

It was good work. Demanding, creative, strategy-driven. And it taught me everything I would eventually need: how brands speak to people, how products earn trust, how to build something from nothing and make it grow.

But there was always a dissonance. The faster the pace, the more the questions grew. Who is making this? Where does it come from? What happens to it when we are done with it?

These are not unusual questions for a working mother to ask. But for someone with my background, they were not questions I could ask and then forget.

The Move: Portugal, Purpose, and a Decision

Relocating from Berlin to Portugal was not a retreat. It was a redirection.

Portugal offered something that felt increasingly rare: a slower rhythm, deep craft heritage, and a manufacturing culture built on quality and skill rather than speed and scale. The country has been producing world-class leather goods and textiles for generations — family workshops, artisans who have spent decades mastering their craft, a tradition of making things properly.

It was exactly the right place to build exactly the kind of brand I had in mind.

The Brand: What Coneli Was Always Going to Be

The name Coneli fuses two things that matter most to me: my own name, and the middle name of my children, Eli. It is a personal brand in the truest sense — built around the life I am living, not the life I left behind.

From the beginning, my brief to myself was clear:

No greenwashing. In a market full of bags labelled “eco” with no certification to back the claim, Coneli would only use materials with verifiable plant-based content. Every material carries USDA Certified Biobased certification with a minimum of 65% plant-derived content.

No compromise on design. Sustainability should not mean settling. Coneli bags are designed to be timeless — the kind of pieces you use for years, not seasons.

Real craft. Every Coneli bag is handmade in Portugal, by artisans paid fair wages, in production that takes care of the people making it as well as the planet.

Honest materials. The Tote in camel is crafted from corn leather. The green and black Totes and the Fanny Pack from Desserto® cactus leather. The Wallet and Bucket Bag from Oleatex® olive leather — made from by-products of the olive oil industry. Each one chosen for a reason, not a marketing story.

Francisco Javier: The Eye Behind the Brand

Every brand that looks this considered has someone thinking carefully about how it looks. For Coneli, that is Francisco Javier — my partner in the brand and the creative force behind its visual identity.

With a background leading global design teams across consumer goods and technology, he brings a level of creative rigour to Coneli that most small brands cannot access. Every photograph you see on this site is his work. Every image was composed, directed, and shot by him — a deliberate choice to keep the visual voice of the brand as honest and intentional as everything else.

Where I bring the strategy and the soul, Francisco Javier brings the eye. Together, we are building something that looks as good as it stands for.

What the First Year Taught Me

Launching in October 2024, I entered a market that is simultaneously hungry for sustainable alternatives and deeply sceptical of brands that claim to offer them. Customers have been burned before — by PU bags labelled vegan leather, by “handmade” claims that did not hold up, by certifications that turned out to mean very little.

Earning trust in that environment takes time. It takes consistency, transparency, and a willingness to show the work — including the difficult parts. The prototype phase that did not go as planned. The setbacks that pushed the launch later than expected. The process of finding the right artisans, the right materials, the right way to tell the story.

I have written about all of it, openly, on this blog. Because that is what honesty looks like in a brand.

What Coneli Stands For Now — and Next

Coneli is growing. The original Tote and Fanny Pack collection has expanded to include the Bucket Bag, the Wallet, and now the Coneli Belt — an adjustable, no-holes belt in plant-based leather that brings the same design philosophy to a new category.

The community is growing too — women who want to move through the world beautifully and responsibly, who refuse to treat those two things as opposites.

If you found Coneli because you were looking for a sustainable bag that actually looks the part, you are exactly who I built this brand for.

Explore the Coneli collection — handmade in Portugal, crafted from certified plant-based leather.

About the author: I’m Constanze (Conny) Bolsch, founder of Coneli. With over ten years of experience in marketing, e-commerce, and brand development, I write about sustainable fashion, plant-based materials, and what it really takes to build a brand with purpose.