Shopping from the past: Steele Canvas Basket Company

At your local library

Canvas work-top table/bench (Steele Canvas Basket Co.)

Six-bushel laundry basket (Steele Canvas Basket Co.)

Thanks to Andy at Reference Library for reintroducing the Steele Canvas Basket Company as a modern, U.S. source for totes, laundry bins and canvas work tables. I first read about the Steele Canvas Co in High Tech: Industrial Style and Sourcebook for the Modern Home, an amazing, Seventies-era design book featuring a number of canvas based storage solutions. Given the book's date of publication, I had assumed that most of the canvas manufacturers had either gone of out of business or moved production overseas. However, to my surprise, I saw Reference Library's post on a special edition of a Steele Canvas tote commissioned by Andy in heavy duty black canvas. While waiting for Andy to bring out a next generation version of his tote (w/longer handles!), I ordered a diminutive tote of my own directly from Steele. What's great about Steele is that they let you semi-customize your bag--permitting you to decide on final shoulder strap length, zipper/no-zipper and canvas panel color configurations. My contact at Steele was even kind enough to send me a few examples of totes created for Japanese clients (see below).

In a future post, I'll publish some more vintage images from the Steele Basket archives along with photographs of a friend's soon-to-arrive, custom canvas laundry bin.

Some samples headed to Japan

If synthetics are your thing

Out of the past

Place holder tote