It may be really, truly hard to wrap your head around this, but according to designer Rebecca Minkoff, she wasn’t always as chic as she is now. “Early on when I was around the ages of 10 to 13 and I was deemed uncool, I literally crafted. That was my outlet,” she said. “So I made candles, I made bags, I learned how to sew and that’s what really got me started in wanting to become a designer.” That’s why we were super stoked when Rebecca, who now sits on a fashion empire that has spawned more than a few iconic handbags (mini mac anyone?), teamed up with us to produce a DIY bag making online class and a kit that provides you with all the tools you need to create your own gorg leather clutch — the first of our icon online class series! In honor of the collab, we had a launch event/DIY session at Rebecca Minkoff’s SoHo location in NYC and got to ask Rebecca and Brit Morin, our founder and CEO, about what inspires them.
The collaboration itself certainly seems like a match made in heaven. When Brit and Rebecca met, they instantly realized that they were both deeply passionate about getting girls into STEM and tech and working with some of the same tech companies out there. “It felt obvious that we should do something together,” Brit says. “And it was just obvious when wanted to work together that we wanted to do a handbag because that’s [Rebecca’s] signature product.” However, the merging of great ideas doesn’t always go off without a hitch. “We had some hiccups with figuring out what would be the easiest thing to make because making a handbag isn’t easy at all. What could the customer actually do without a sewing machine, without an awl and without losing her fingernails?” Rebecca asks with a laugh, “Once we figured that part out, it was smooth sailing.”
For the DIY session part of the day, each person received an adorable leather clutch-making kit, which included a pre-cut leather bag, lots of leather suede strips for fringe, a silver collar pin for closure and a Rebecca Minkoff button charm to make her/his own fringe-tactic (yes, we just made up that word and we’re sticking to it) bag that’s perfect for nights out on the town.
Both Rebecca and Brit got hands-on with teaching the attendees how to put together their clutches and dishing out lots of helpful tips and tricks to get the job done.
Both had high hopes for today’s event. “For me, it’s getting … this whole fashion set to know how Brit + Co works and physically come away with something they made,” says Rebecca. Brit shares: “For me, it’s about showing the accessibility to make something or buy it and still have a great outcome. I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive — I think women should be open to doing both and not being intimidated to be creative.”
Mission accomplished.
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