From Pain to Purpose
Five years ago, if someone had told me I’d walk away from a decade working in tech to found my own luxury leather bag brand, I would have laughed. Yet here I am, 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, travelling with the only two bags I’ve used for the past eighteen months: the AVAIA and the AVAIA Petit.
They didn’t just make travel easier. They made it painless, stylish, and - dare I say it - fun again.
After years of dragging beautiful but impractical bags through airports, stuffing passports into coat pockets, and changing handbags multiple times in a single trip, I’d had enough. So, I built exactly what I wished existed - the AVAIA and the AVAIA Petit - two convertible leather bags born from my own frustration and now my absolute favourite travel companions.
The Breaking Point That Changed Everything
Back surgery in 2020. Hip surgery in 2021.
Suddenly the “pretty” bags that destroyed my back weren’t so pretty anymore. I was exhausted from choosing between style and comfort, from swapping bags to suit my itinerary, from landing already defeated by my own luggage working against me.
Then came an unexpected layoff at the end of the pandemic. Instead of a setback, I saw it as an opportunity: time to create the luxury travel bag I’d been searching for and never found.
For three years I obsessed over prototypes and interviewed over 100 women: frequent -travellers taking red-eyes, creatives juggling family and boardroom, adventurers who refused to compromise - and I refined every detail until it felt effortless. The outcome? A truly versatile, convertible bag range that finally works as hard as we do.
Read More About Why I Founded LIAVELLA
The AVAIA Duo – Your New Ultimate Travel Companions
The AVAIA is my long-haul hero. I wear it as a backpack through the chaos of check-in and security. My laptop perfectly protected in its compartment, luggage strap that slides over my suitcase (If I need checked luggage, which I often don’t), continuous zip so I’m never fishing blindly for whatever I need to remove for scanning. The moment I get through security, I switch out the straps, and it instantly becomes the sleek shoulder bag that I carry into meetings. No one ever guesses it was a backpack five minutes earlier. That small moment of transformation still makes me smile every single time.
Then there’s my shape shifting secret weapon, the AVAIA Petit. I’m slightly obsessed with how it changes with me throughout the day. Hands-free belt bag when I’m racing through terminals in too many layers, the hidden back passport pocket has saved me at more borders than I can count. Crossbody for exploring a new city, wristlet for evening, or that perfect little vertical shoulder bag when I want to feel polished without effort.
Both pack completely flat, and of course the AVAIA Petit disappears into the AVAIA, and reappears exactly when I need it.
Together they’ve replaced an entire shelf of single-purpose bags.
The Bigger Mission
This is what I set out to do with LIAVELLA: create luxury travel bags that let us move lighter, stand taller, and waste zero energy on things that don’t serve us.
I’ve worn this duo from Madrid to Tokyo, New York boardrooms to the Alps, and I still get that little rush when someone stops me to ask, “Where did you get that bag?”
Ready for travel that finally feels like you? You should invest in the AVAIA Duo, I promise the first time you switch from backpack to shoulder bag in three seconds flat, you’ll smile the same way I do - every single trip.
Shop the AVAIA and the AVAIA Petit here.
With love and a well-stamped passport,
Lia McBride
