May 24, 2006
he passes up bags with too many nail heads or grommets. “Too busy,” she says.
She’s looking for hip and functional bags with clean lines and good construction. She prefers bags that are lightweight and labels that aren’t carried by competitors.
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She stays away from the supersized-bags that have become popular of late, saying that Baltimore women - who don’t walk the streets like New York women - prefer their handbags more compact. She also avoids other characteristics, such as suede, and black bags with white stitching.
“Baltimore doesn’t like white stitching,” Levitas says. “I don’t know why.”
After the two trade shows in New York - the first one at the Chelsea Piers is more high-end than the other, at the Javits Center - Levitas has ordered close to 250 handbags to come into her store from August to September.
This will make up Gotta Have Bags’ fall line of selections and styles.
At the end of all the foraging, she is exhausted and slightly anxious.
“You only know that you’ve bought right,” Levitas says, yo-yo bouncing a bag to see how much it weighs, “when it walks out the door.”
It is the driving question behind most buyers’ purchases: Will this handbag sell?
“This [job] can be chancy,” says Jodi L. Brodie, who buys the fashion-forward handbags for Treasure House in Pikesville, as she rides the tour bus back to Baltimore from a day at the shows. “If we bring it in, we’re making a statement saying that we believe in it and this is what we think is important for the season. Some things work, and some things don’t.”
In Baltimore, customers tend to be “safer” than many buyers would like.
“In a way, we’re a bit provincial,” says Lola Abt Hahn, buyer for handbags and accessories at Octavia in Pikesville. “They love fashion, but … ” She chooses her words carefully, not wanting to paint too bleak a picture of Baltimore.
Abt Hahn says she loved Lockheart, a new line she discovered at Accessorie Circuit, the higher-end of the two shows Levitas attended. But she isn’t sure if Baltimore’s women - who prefer recognizable brands - would see what she saw in the fanciful, embellished line of leather bags,.
“If I carry this new line that I just saw,” she says, “it’s so edgy and so fabulous. I don’t know. I would carry it, but I don’t think I can sell it.”
Abt Hahn and Brodie have many of the same customers - women with means and a real sense of high fashion.
Octavia, for instance, carries designer Marc Jacobs’ highly sought-after status bags. And Treasure House was one of the first to introduce Kooba - the latest “It” label - to Baltimore.
Levitas’ customers, on the other hand, want style and flair, but with a slightly lower price tag. So Levitas’ days traipsing up and down convention center aisles are filled with visions of dollar signs.
Botkier, a rising star in the handbag world, required buyers to purchase at least 10 bags. Fine for big department stores. Too much for Levitas.
Keeping costs low is harder this year -rising gas costs have worked their way even into the price of handbags.
“In the last two months, things have gone up 14 percent” for manufacturers, says Glen Teres, designer for Borsetta International, where Levitas buys many of her bags. His suppliers are “not absorbing those oil prices.”
May 21, 2006
New York // It’s 6 a.m. on a Monday and Emily Levitas, owner of Gotta Have Bags in Hampden, is on a bus, headed for the accessories trade show in New York. There, she will scout out the designs of hundreds of handbag manufacturers and artisans and decide which will and which won’t make the cut.
She has armed herself with only a few tools: a map of the booths in the mammoth exhibition site, a pen, comfortable shoes and a keen eye for beauty, usefulness and style.
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Like hundreds of others who will descend on the trade show on this day, Levitas is a hunter of sorts, on the prowl for the must-have of the season - handbags.
“It’s a big category right now,” Lincoln Moore, vice president and divisional merchandise manager at Saks Fifth Avenue, says of handbags. “It’s kind of the customers’ signposts.”
Handbags are so important these days that it makes Levitas’ job that much more important. But her work is often unrecognized by most everyday shoppers.
Buyers do the preliminary shopping, picking the items that you one day will pick and choose from.
At two of the more popular fairs, attended by hundreds of exhibitors, Levitas spots a few unusual pieces to put in her shop window, to draw in customers, such as an across-the-body pouch, from new designer Sobella, with a detachable strap that can be made into a necklace. But she also sees style in basics: black satchels, brown hobos, clutches, dainty evening bags.
For Levitas, that style-spotting talent is part experience - from nearly 40 years in the handbag business - and part gut feeling.
“I am very opinionated about what I like and don’t like,” says Levitas, who had a partner, Linda Segal, to bounce ideas off of, but is now sole buyer since Segal’s death last fall. “If I don’t see anything by just scanning, I won’t go in [to a booth].”
And in six hours, Levitas does pass up many a booth, for various reasons: too expensive, too dowdy, too cheap-looking, too glitzy.
Multiple times a year, she does this, spending hours on her feet, scouring exhibition booths for new inventory to fill her small boutique. Through the day, she breaks only once for a half-hour lunch.
“I have to see everything there is to see,” says Levitas. “I can’t miss anything. And I don’t have a lot of time.”
At the trade shows, buyers converge on each small booth and instantly go to work.
Levitas is astoundingly decisive, despite salespeople’s sugary spiels. And she has no poker face.
She turns up her nose. Frowns her face. If she loves something, she coos.
Hour after hour. Handbag after handbag. Walking, peering, weighing, feeling.
At the Tocca booth, many bags were about $220 wholesale - the price buyers pay for merchandise - which means they’d cost her customers twice that or more.
Levitas liked the bags, but bit her bottom lip at the price, and left the booth without buying.
At Y&S, she picks up a hobo bag and puts it back.
“Everybody’s got a hobo,” she says.
February 28, 2006
Her handbags have been seen on the everyone from Eva Langoria, Jessica Simpson to expectant mom Angelina Jolie.
# Featured bags: Doris Clutch in petal satin with snake trim (carried on Desperate Housewives) - $307
# Emma Clutch in Kiwi (carried on Desperate Housewives) - $191
# Sophia bag in White Pearl Lamb with Natural Anaconda trim (sent to Jessica Simpson) - $481
# Espresso Baby Bag (sent to Angelina Jolie) - $425
# Gold Baby Bag (requested by Mariska Hargitay) - $425
Susan Fitch, the founder of Susan Fitch handbags, will be in studio to talk about her handbag company and why it is considered one of the “best” in Chicago. The segment will begin with Susan talking about how she got started in this business and her background. With a first-class flock of loyal fans, this meticulous designer has been catering to the au courant crowds across the country for years. Susan’s dedication to seeking out the finest materials, precise attention to detail and a hint of edginess, is her recipe for success.
The newest addition to Susan’s collection is her Million Dollar Baby Bag. After the birth of her baby, she realized it was time to create a baby bag worth carrying (with or without the baby in tow). Understanding that modern-day moms are looking for something fashionable and functional, Susan created a luxurious bag that is ready to tend to any trend-setting tot, while keeping up with mom’s style.
Recently seen on ABC’s “The View” and “The Today Show,” Susan Fitch bags are sold at Barneys New York, Kitson in LA, Holt Renfrew in Canada, and across the country at specialty boutiques. For more information about Susan Fitch, log onto susanfitch.com.
November 7, 2005
Shopping in Beverly Hills last week I strolled Wilshire Boulevard popping in and out of fancy stores sizing up all the new designer handbags. There are a number of new looks for Fall 2005, and prices have a new look, too. Did you know designer handbags have become the staple in most wardrobes? It doesn’t take a genius to buy a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but to purchase the correct designer handbag to pull it all together has become quite an art.
In conversations with many handbag salespeople, it was obvious the upcoming season will offer a variety of wild colors, exotic leathers, and metallic finished leathers. They will appear in shoulder styles, clutches, slings and large totes. Most designer bags remain consistent in size and function. The variations from season to season come to color, hardware, texture and price.
Prices are a difficult topic for handbag lovers to discuss, it became the purpose of the Beverly Hills shopping trip. Which designers will rise to the top? Which handbags will have the highest price tags? These thoughts offered astonishing observations wondering through the high-end boutiques and department stores.
Doing a bit of mental gymnastics with a few designer handbag price tags, it became obvious a calculator was needed! Prices are competing with Los Angeles mortgage payments! One designer bag, constructed of scratch resistant, pebble grain calf leather, had a hefty $3500.00 price tag. Durability to last a life time is a major characteristic of a quality handbag, but let’s get real here, women change handbags as often as they change their nail polish. Paying hefty prices for a designer handbag a few times each month is fashionable, but not healthy or wise.
Not mentioning any names, a lengthy conversation with a handbag specialist in a very well-known department store shed light on the day’s mission. We strolled the designer handbag department with calculator in hand. Punching in numbers of our favorite high-end designer, we came up with a hefty five-figure total for 10 handbags. Then, with jaws dropped open, the average price was uncovered! As expected, little was left to shock and surprise. Based on a sampling of the designer handbag prices, the price for a brand new, high-end designer handbag this season averages an all-time high of $2000.00 USD.
Oh my! What a price we pay to pull it all together with that pair of denim jeans and T-shirt! We have become the hunters in search of the best designer handbag we can find. And, when we know it will coordinate with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then we know we’ve selected the best bag. We want to look good, and we want to feel good, too. It would be nice to know we can purchase a bag from a new designer and still make a mortgage payment this same month.
Here’s a solution. For those of us who know style and don’t want to compromise quality, find a designer handbag expert to coach and guide your investments. Lacking modesty, I’ll volunteer recommendations on a variety of designer handbags available at a fraction of what you’d expect to pay in a retail store.
You can actually purchase several handbags for the average cost of one designer handbag if you shop wisely. If you are a true designer handbag addict, and you purchase a new handbag whenever you get the urge, then you need a reliable source. Shop carefully at sites specializing in designer handbags, and you’ll find your favorite designers at as much as 50% less than the average cost on Rodeo Drive!
November 5, 2005
Speaking of colors, last fall it was all about sage greens. This year the color of the season seems to be brown. Brown is everywhere – suede jackets, pin-stripes pants, skirts and scarves. Add to that splashes of other fall colors like the ones mentioned above, mellow purple, fuschia, orange, etc. and you have the perfect Fall 2005 look. Here is a quick preview of this year’s fall fashions for those looking to update their wardrobes.
The Look: Old-world inspired. Think elegant sepia photographs from the 1940s and 50s. Casual yet sophisticated.
The Trends:
- Tweed skirts, pants (full length and cropped) and culottes in brown plaid or pinstripes. Also making quite a debut are knit jersey gauchos. Very comfy but cool casual.
- Shirts and blouses in floral prints in mellow fall colors. Nothing too overstated.
- Solid color sweaters (no diamond argyle prints like last year). And thanks to Martha Stewart who donned one on her homecoming trip from prison, ponchos! Stick to solid colors, experimenting with designs can get tricky.
- Knee high boots (everyone can carry these off).
- Animal print scarves, faux fur collars (so cool, I just love these)
- Large hobo handbags (must have, anyway). Also, texture is really in - suede, metal, houndstooth prints, anything out of the ordinary.
- Silk kurtis or Indian style tunics in large floral prints in blocks of fall colors.
- Embellished belts – with tassels, ribbons, sequins, etc.
- Fedora hats (if you like that extra touch of elegance). Some celebrities are also donning big floppy suede hats as well.
- Hairdos – neat, coiffed, styled, tied back, you get the picture.
