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How the women making Meghan's £700 handbags are paid as little as 10p

When the Duchess of Sussex announced this summer that she was investing in a luxury handbag brand popular with Hollywood A-listers, she spok

EXCLUSIVE REVEALED: How the women making Meghan's £700 'ethical' handbags are paid as little as 10 PENCE PER HOUR, as exposed in this bombshell investigation by the Mail On Sunday

By DAISY GRAHAM-BROWN PUBLISHED: 01:57, 15 December 2024 | UPDATED: 11:47, 15 December 2024

When the Duchess of Sussex announced this summer that she was investing in a luxury handbag brand popular with Hollywood A-listers, she spoke enthusiastically about how the company's 'ethical standards' were 'incredibly important to me'. Yet a Mail on Sunday investigation has found that Cesta Collective – whose high-end designs sell for more than £700 a time – pays some of the women who make them as little as 10 pence an hour.

Weavers working from their cement or mudbrick homes in isolated, rural villages in Rwanda can earn as little as 82p for an eight-hour day, despite the company hailing them as 'talented female artisans' who are the 'best in class at their craft'. The figure is less than half the £1.70 a day the World Bank considers as the 'extreme poverty' line. Cesta Collective, which boasts of its 'fair compensation practices', says the earning figures do take into account women's other sources of income and said the World Bank figure was outdated and not equally applicable to all Rwandans. The World Bank confirmed the accuracy of the figure to the MoS.

Meghan's endorsement of the 'incredible' company worked wonders for its sales. When she was pictured carrying one of Cesta's bags on a dinner date with Prince Harry last year, the company's wealthy New York-based co-founders Erin Ryder and Courtney Weinblatt Fasciano said it led to the most profitable week in their company's history. In announcing her financial backing in August, the Duchess said: 'With Cesta, I really started to understand how many women's lives were being impacted and uplifted through their work. That was incredibly important to me.' A feature in fashion bible Vogue followed.

Meghan Markle with a Cesta bag on a dinner date with Prince Harry in Columbia in August

But after speaking to several of Cesta's female weavers, the MoS can reveal that:

- Workers were shocked at how much the bags sold for compared to what they earned, and said they hope for a pay rise following this newspaper's investigation;

- Women have their meagre earnings deducted if a bag is deemed substandard;

- Some workers have to pay for the raw material themselves, and to cover transport costs to get it to their remote villages;

- They are not full-time employees of Cesta and are paid by the bag, so earnings drop if orders go down.

Until September, Cesta's website had boasted the company was 'proud to pay 500-700 per cent times the national average salary of Rwanda' – a claim that was removed some time after Meghan's investment was announced. After this was queried by the MoS, the company's lawyers said the change came as 'a reflection of their commitment to refining how they communicate'.

The truth is that although the women we spoke to were proud of their craft and grateful for the work in a country with a very high unemployment rate, they wished their earnings would rise.

Living in remote communities, the women use the income from Cesta to supplement what they earn by working the land with their husbands, growing bananas, beans and maize. We found some in houses with corrugated metal roofs where they live in cramped, spartan conditions with their large families sharing one or two rooms. One group of women, working for Cesta as part of a cooperative in an isolated farming settlement in the southern district of Ruhango, worked together outside the lead weaver's house. Another, in the northern province of Rulindo, chose to rent a small sparsely-furnished building to work from – paying the fee out of their earnings. They spoke to the Mail working shoulder-to-shoulder sitting on a roughly-woven mat which covered the stone floor.

While the climate means long spells of uninterrupted sunshine, the rainy seasons can be punishing. Several women working on Cesta bags in the Eastern district of Kayonza had to postpone speaking to us so they could salvage their modest farms from floods. One weaver, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of 800,000 Tutsi people, told us: 'We are praying that maybe they can increase our wages with time, especially if our bags fetch good profits.' And Illuminée Bayisabe, 60, who lives in a hamlet in the valleys of Ruhango and had been weaving since she was nine, said: 'The gap between the price [they sell for] and what we get paid is very big.'

Weavers working from their cement or mudbrick homes in isolated, rural villages in Rwanda can earn as little as 82p for an eight-hour day

Meghan's endorsement of the 'incredible' company Cesta worked wonders for its sales

Acknowledging that the money from Cesta had improved her life, the mother-of-four added: 'I would hope that they can sit down and revise the prices and increase the wages a little bit especially as the economy is so tight these days.'

After taxes and costs, Ms Bayisabe gets paid 4,300 Rwandan Francs (£2.48) to weave a small crossbody bag. Afterwards. they are shipped to Italy where they are finished with leather and sell for £724.

Cesta said it is not involved in the process of setting the fees women get paid for the bags and that it relies on All Across Africa, the firm which oversees the work, to agree the prices in conjunction with the weavers.

Ms Bayisabe said it takes her and the other women she works with three days to make one, working up to eight hours a day, equating to 10.3p per hour. While her earnings vary depending on the number of orders, she said in a good month she will make the equivalent of £34.36 before taxes. Cesta claimed that three days is how long it would take the 'slowest weaver' to make the bag, and that other women are faster and therefore earn more per hour. The company said it takes 'much less than eight hours typically' to make the bag which is not 'uninterrupted time' as the women have childcare and household responsibilities. 

Didacienne Musengimana, 30, who works as part of a cooperative in Rulindo said she takes home the equivalent of £9.22 for a larger bag called the 'Taco Tote'. Again, she told us that it takes her at least three days to make, working up to eight hours a day, meaning she makes roughly 38p per hour after taxes and the other expenses. This is above the World Bank's extreme poverty line. But the bag is sold in the UK for £863, meaning her take-home pay is just a fraction over one per cent of the bag's retail price. Asked if she thought her wages were fair she said: 'There is nothing I can do about it, I just have to work. I feel that we should be earning slightly more and maybe in the future we can earn more, but for now I understand.' Another woman said the money helps supplement her income, but added: 'I can't say the money I get from the bag is bad, but an increase would be much appreciated.'

Their humble lives contrast starkly with the affluence enjoyed by Cesta's founders.

Privately-educated Ms Weinblatt Fasciano, the daughter of a Harvard Medical School professor, studied at an Ivy League university and lives in a sleek, two-bedroom apartment in trendy Brooklyn with her husband Michael – a marketing director who has been an executive at US investment bank Goldman Sachs – and their goldendoodle, Pepper.  They bought the flat for £692,000 in 2017. Ms Fasciano was a marketing director at Marie Claire magazine and worked at designer shoe brand Loeffler Randall before founding Cesta in 2018.

Meanwhile, Ms Ryder was an intern at Chanel and studied at the £44,000-a-year School of Design in New York and Paris. Photographs on social media reveal Ms Ryder enjoying skiing holidays and multiple trips to Rwanda as part of her work with Cesta. The company has been hit by critisism before, particularly over its use of images of Rwandan weavers to help promote the bags following Meghan's investment.

British fashion influencer Georgie James said in August: 'It is inappropriate to use these women as a marketing tactic for your brand, especially when they are not full-time employees, nor do they have any ownership of your brand... 'These women should not be used cynically to make shopaholic western women feel better for purchasing yet another handbag, which they don't need. That is what we call poverty porn, and it's barely okay when charities do it. It's completely inappropriate when for-profit businesses do it.'

None of the Rwandan women we spoke to knew much about Cesta – and none knew who Meghan Markle was. The Duchess is not understood to be involved in the management of the company in any way. To work on Cesta products, some of the Rwandan weavers pay for the materials, transport costs and rent (if they use a building for a workshop) out of their own wages, financial accounts from one cooperative – seen by the MoS – reveal. They are also not paid for a bag if they are not up to scratch, Benon Mugisha, an operations manager at All Across Africa, explained. He said he monitors the quality, saying: 'For Cesta it must be very perfect'. Cesta said only one per cent of bags are rejected for quality reasons and that the women receive training to reduce waste. It says the women are encouraged to sell the rejects at local markets. Mr Mugisha – whose organisation is certified by Nest, a non-profit watchdog monitoring ethical standards – also explained that 'the wages depend on the orders. Some months we may even get no orders'.

A Cesta Collective spokesman said: 'Cesta Collective was founded to create consistent, dignified employment opportunities for talented female artisans in developing regions. Since inception, we have upheld our mission and remain committed to growing our business and the livelihoods of those who help bring our handbags to life. 'Cesta has acted in good faith and understanding through our partnership with All Across Africa which operates on the ground in Rwanda. Recent allegations are an attempt to discredit that work with speculative information that has been unethically manipulated. We remain committed to ensuring success is shared equitably by everyone involved.' An AAA statement, sent to the MoS via Cesta, said the weavers set their own wages and AAA was ‘deeply committed to empowering women, ensuring fairness and transforming lives through dignified work’. 

A quadriplegic student with a lot of willpower collects his diploma, he will surely face the future with the same strength.

Express.co.uk

'Rachel Reeves is freeloader with no self-respect — how's she still Chancellor?'

Rachel Reeves is easily the worst Chancellor in living memory and the cringe-inducing bombshells just keep on dropping.

Rachel Reeves is a freeloader with no self-respect — here's £8,576 reason she must go

Rachel Reeves is easily the worst Chancellor in living memory and the cringe-inducing bombshells just keep on dropping.

By CAROLE MALONE 14:47, Tue, Mar 25, 2025 | UPDATED: 16:06, Tue, Mar 25, 2025

Why does Rachel Reeves still have a job? It's not just what she’s announcing in her spring statement this week – jobs cuts and higher taxes – that should have her sacked. It’s the fact she’s a ligger, she’s greedy and she’s totally devoid of sense. Why? Because just a few months after she, Starmer and various other cabinet ministers were plunged into a damaging Freebies row – Reeves has brazenly been at it again.

First, we discover the woman, who together with her husband is on a joint income of nearly £400,000, took free £600 seats in a VIP box for a Sabrina Carpenter concert (nope I’ve never heard of her either). She’s also taken £276 worth of free theatre tickets, £7,500 worth of free clothes and a £200 Harrods Hamper from the Qatari Embassy

Even some of her own cabinet colleagues are now disgusted at what she’s done, the major one being Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who threw the Chancellor under a bus yesterday saying she, personally, had never taken free tickets since becoming an MP and that she was far too busy working to attend concerts. “I actually haven’t been to any concerts at all because I’m very very busy,” said Ms Alexander. “I’ve got to prioritise my time and when I’ve got time off spending it with my husband and family is a more attractive option to me.”

What is it with this woman? Has she no respect for the high office she holds? Has she no respect for herself? Does she not see this kind of greed brands her the worst kind of freeloader and a laughing stock not to be taken seriously. And yes, I know MP’s are allowed by parliamentary rules to take freebies as long as they’re properly declared and as long as public perception is taken into account. Well, first they shouldn’t be. And second, I’ll tell you what the public perception is here – it's that Reeves is a brazen ligger who’ll take any freebie she can get. The perception is that she’s using her position as chancellor to get free stuff.

It’s that she’s not just greedy, insensitive and foolish but she clearly has zero judgment about how the British people will see this at a time she’s about to heap even more taxes they can’t afford onto them – all because she’s completely ballsed up the economy. And just to feed into the stupidity argument her ludicrous excuse for taking the swanky box at the O2 concert was that “it was the right thing to do for my security.” Sorry, but Rachel Reeves wouldn’t know the “right thing” if it smacked her in the face. No, the right thing would have been NOT to take the free tickets. The right thing would have been to pay for them herself as she and her husband have a vast combined income that puts them head and shoulders above the majority in this country.

How on Earth does Rachel Reeves still have a job? (Image: PA)

The right thing to do would have been not to embarrass the Government after the Freebie scandal that engulfed it just a few months ago.A Government spokesman said this week the rules surrounding ministerial gifts had been strengthened to “ensure transparency.” Well, clearly Reeves didn’t get the memo — or maybe she thinks the rules don’t apply to her? Either way her arrogance is towering.

But then can we be surprised at her skanky behaviour when we have a leader who has done exactly what she has – taken a free box (at Arsenal) and then also insisted it was about his security. Starmer also took thousands of pounds worth of free clothes and specs from one of Labour’s biggest donors, Waheed Ali.

The fact is the PM can’t sack Reeves for embarrassing the Government because he’s done what she has. Do you remember how the Labour Party howled and screeched whenever anyone in the last Tory Government took freebies? They almost burst blood vessels in their condemnation.

But the minute they got into power all the anger was forgotten and people like Starmer and Reeves couldn’t wait to grab what they could get. It’s a terrible look and the fact Reeves still can’t see it shows just how ill-suited she is for government. But of course she’s not the only freeloader in high office.

It's been revealed that Angela Rayner, the minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government, went on a taxpayer funded visit to Ethiopia. Of course, the first question has to be what possible business she could have in Ethiopia that was relevant to her job as Housing Minister and that would justify spending £20,000 of taxpayers money on it?

But while she was there she also requested a private safari trip and had to be told by the civil service that taxpayers would absolutely not be funding that. Why did a Government minister have to be told that was wrong?

Well, this is the same Angela Rayner who accepted £3,550 worth of free clothes from Lord Alli and a stay in his New York apartment. And remember it was her who had the brass neck to call the Tories scum? She needs to take a long hard long in the mirror….

As does Reeves. She’s not just the worst Chancellor in living memory. She lied about her qualifications for the job. She lied about the fictional black hole which the Office for Budget Responsibility has refused to acknowledge ever existed. And thanks to her incompetent stewardship of the economy she has now created her own black hole because she’s borrowed and spent more than she needed with the result being zero growth and a flatlining economy. And of top of all that catastrophe and inadequacy the hypocrite Reeves still thinks its OK to reward herself with freebies?

What has been done about this woman’s behaviour….NOTHING!!!

Perfect

MexiCommiefornia

SOMETHING TO PONDER: George Carlin

George Carlin's wife died early in 2008 and George followed her, dying in July 2008. It is ironic George Carlin - comedian of the 70's and 80's - could write something so very eloquent and so very appropriate. An observation by George Carlin:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

And always remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by those moments that take our breath away.

George Carlin