What can I do that I use that piece of a handbag as a canvas, as a piece of art? Something very unique and one of a kind, that it's not anywhere. Right. So that was my starting point. And also it's my love of handcrafts. So I wanted to combine those two on a handbag. That's where I started.
SPEAKER_01Hi,
and welcome to Handbag Designer One One the podcast with your host, Emily Blumenthal, handbag industry expert, and the handbag fairy godmother. Each week we uncover the stories behind the handbags we love, from the iconic brands and top designers, the creativity, craftsmanship, and culture that define the handbag world. Whether you're a designer, collector, or simply passionate about handbags, this is your front row deep to it all. Welcome, Alifa Caden, to Handbag Designer Wanna Win the Podcast. Welcome, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So you have had your handbag brand for quite some time. You and I met through the handbag awards, which is my love story for so many. So you are obviously part of that. But I think what so many of our listeners may or may not be aware of of how many handbag designers there are out there. And what a lonely process it is to not only create a brand, but to create a brand that's creative, that requires feedback and other people, but yet there's so much of it we end up doing alone. And that's what made the handbag award so special because it it created community, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you get your start way back when? Was this your days of Turkey or pre-Turkey, post-Turkey? What PT post tape?
SPEAKER_00So yeah,
I moved here for college. When I moved to States, I was uh freshman college. Yeah, I was a child. Oh my god. It's like your typical immigrant story, you know. So I did my first laundry here. I never did my laundry by myself before, you know, we were raised so protective, and you know.
SPEAKER_01Where did you was that a big deal to come to school here? Or were you because it's like people don't seem to realize, like, okay, you leave the state, waha, leave one state to another. You're leaving a country, like you're leaving a whole place, different culture, language, laundry.
SPEAKER_00Like that's pretty bold of you, and this was back in 1994. So it was pre-inter. I mean, there was a little bit of inter, but not yeah. I mean, this was like I remember writing letters to my grandma, Henry letters. I have those, I'm keeping those, you know. You should. This was a different time, and then after I finished my degree, I had a fashion degree. I said, Where am I gonna go? I'm gonna go to New York. I have I had a one-year work permit, so oh my god. I have a friend who lived in New Jersey, and they have an extra room, so I became roommates with them, and then I remember my first New York moment, like it was a week, I had my resume out, going to the library on 34th Street, fact using the fax in one of the offices there and faxing it, you know. And one day I first time I looked up in the city and I saw those buildings. And after a week, because I was like on the run and I had this moment, it felt home. I still get like goosebumps, and it felt so much home to me. And I said, okay, you know, at that age, that week I got my first job as an assistant. Wow, yeah, for a belt designer in Mikro. And then I was there almost half a year or so, and then I got a job as a buyer in Soho. For where the shop is not there, it's the Nike building there now, but it used to be a shop called Institute. Oh my god, I remember that. Yeah, so I became a buyer there, and then that gave me an opportunity to go to Europe that build up my whole vision in this industry. I get how was that being a buyer? You know, you were so young. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I wasn't on my own first, I was with the other buyers, right?
SPEAKER_01And then but still like to have that kind of yeah, like you being a designer now, seeing the power, like knowing the power that a buyer wields, especially being on the other end, like please let them pick me, you know, carry me. My back is really should fit. And only a buyer can say this doesn't fit with what our customer was looking for. I'm only gonna buy with what I know is going to sell. So sorry, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that learning that actually is helping me because I'm really good at rejections now. Yeah. From you know, every store is different. Every so I'm I that taught me a lot because working on the other end of the being a buyer back then. That opportunity really built my whole vision because I got to see very creative, very good people, and their work, and it was, and back then, this was like late 90s, early 2000s in New York City. It was scoop, and you know, all the it's all multi-label. We had the thing.
SPEAKER_01We had the founder Big Drop on Yes. So that time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I remember it's so funny. I remember going to Big Drop and Scoop, write down the labels they have and try to get those line, you know, all that stuff, like you know, trade shows. It was a different world then, yeah. Yeah, so I got to learn a lot, and then in my career, I I worked for a high-end men's wear company, it's called Domenico Vacca, and I did some custom suits for them in the team. I was in the team, but then I ended up working for a handbag company, it's called Dafino, they have shopped uh in New York, and I was doing their buying also and working with them. And then I met this lovely handmade manufacturer in Midtown, Arturo. He
was on 27th Street. So whenever he would come to the shops, and I would say, Arturo, can you make like on a piece of paper, sketch something? And can you make something like this? I'm sure we will sell it here, or can you do this differently than this? And then he came up to me after a while. He said, Why don't you like design a collection? I make it and we try to sell it. You give me all these ideas, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00This was 2005 or six, and I said, Sure. And then I that was my first collection in 2006. With him, did you leave your job? That job was like a freelancing job. I was buying, so I had other projects going on. I was working for a home textile designer. We were maybe you know her, Judy Ross. She makes beautiful pillows um and rocks, so I was her assistant too at that time. So that's how my first uh handbag line appeared in the world. It wasn't called Patent of Art, it was Elif New York. Right. I made my own. It was just logo, the whole thing. And then the handbag shop carried it, Delphino, they sold it, and then that's how I started it. And between 2008 and 2014, I had to travel back home to Istanbul, so I didn't do much on my own brand, under my brand, but I did bags for private label, other company. I I was still in the industry when I was doing some other stuff until I rebranded in 2014 and my logo and that and apart. So that's how I started.
Yeah. Wow. Whatever it never crossed your mind to do production in Turkey. There's so many factories there. Yeah, my production is in Turkey.
SPEAKER_00It is now, yeah. Everything is, yeah. Back then it was my first handbag collections, few of them in New York, but then I carried everything because I got to meet beautiful leather artisans. My atelier in Turkey right now, in Istanbul, is a family-owned atelier. They do this by generations, yeah. And we became kind of family, sort of, you know, we um, and my mission is uh women empowerment before doing anything. So this atelier or the owner of the atelier is he's a feminist, and he uh he that's hard, that's hard and jerky to say, and in that that part of the culture of seriously, yeah, very, very man-owned, you know, and the managers, top managers in in his atelier, they're all women, and they employ more than 50 percent women employees, and then a part of my sales also donated to women education, and the uh the organization is based in Istanbul too. That they give scholarships to young women, so it's the whole circle now, you know, coming from them and then doing all this work, and then doing my whole production in uh where I was born and raised until high school.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. I mean, we had him on right when we started Tanner Leatherstein, Leather State, he's Turkish as well. Yes, and although he doesn't really talk about that part that much, to go back and see that there's so much leather in Turkey, people are just unaware of what exists over there, the factories and the product that can be made.
And you can also do some. I I have a division that I do leftover. I I work with the leftover leathers from the ateliers.
SPEAKER_01That's amaz how did you come to start doing that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I have a friend, she is a lovely friend. We did a project together, still doing the project together with her. She knew this companies, they buy basically you go and you buy the leather by pound by kilo, like right with huge, they put them on huge places, and then you just get them. You don't know what you get usually until you go and you sort them out, but they don't end up in the land mills, right? So you turn them into beautiful products, and that was with her help, we did a lot of projects together, still doing those projects together, and then we creating beautiful stuff with her. That's one part of what I do, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you find that customers or boutiques or even retail has issue with that as a result of using scraps that can't be duplicated, you know, that kind of mystery bag? You know, it's it's one thing like if you're doing an unboxing where I don't know what I'm gonna get, but it's another if you're buying a handbag and you just don't know.
SPEAKER_00So what I did, it's a great question. What I did was in the trade show, I created everything. So all the bags, they were all one of each because it was all from scraps, right? So in my trade, I did one trade show just with upcycle leather, nothing else. Wow, and then in the setup, I had my table and in bag, I had all those shelves, and all the bags were folded in the shelves, and the store owners would come and then they had to pick a color team. Right. They will do greys, they will do golds, they will go silvers, and it had to be pre-packed of 10 pieces. That's why I did it, and they loved it, it worked.
SPEAKER_01If
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that's super, super clever. You know, because we we talk to a lot of designers that aren't doing what you're doing, but are trying to be responsible and conscientious with leather scraps and to turnkey them into something. And it is a challenge to sell something and not be able to guarantee that it will look exactly what the buyer had requested, whether it's D2C or B2C or B2B. So I know that's a challenge because you know, as someone from where I sit, when someone says, Oh, it's bespoke, to me, there's two things that bespoke means. And if anybody doesn't know, bespoke means it's one of a kind. Bespoke means at the literal definition, it's one of a kind, and it's implied that it's made with very, very expensive materials, it's handmade, it's atelier, it's you know, each thread is basically woven with gold, you know. That's but the flip side is when you deal with independent designers that say it's bespoke, to me, that translates to you have not figured out a way to make the product copy and paste, and therefore your costs are way too high. And you believe that your customer, who may or may not exist, is willing to pay for something that they don't care to know more of because a lot of new designers can't figure out how to make a commercial price point and assume their markup should be 70, 80 percent. And realistically, when you're a new new brand, you can't sell your bags at $800, $900 at retail. No one's gonna buy it. So that you know, moniker bespoke means I don't know how to build up to that. Yes, right. But it's a very different story if you're using leather scraps, where the labor might be the same as it would to make another bag. If not, it might be more because you're sewing pieces together and you can't copy paste, but it's a whole different narrative to go with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's
it's sustainability practice that I wanted to keep doing, but I do also have a bispo collections that I collaborate doing it. It's the finalist in your uh competition was one of them. It's a hand embroidery bags that I do. Those are all my original artwork, and they go to India, and they all use this technique called hand um chain stitch technique, and they're all hand embroideried into pieces, and those pieces turn into bags. So these bespoke pieces are also what I do, but for those, they're not uh yes, I they're very limited in quantity, but I at least have at least 50 of them of the same thing. So that's not bespoke as far as I'm concerned. It's not yeah, they're all handmade, but yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01And so when you started doing that, did you find that you had a customer that was willing to invest in something like that? Or was that something you had to try to find?
SPEAKER_00Well, my starting point was the question was what can I do that I use that piece of a handbag as a canvas, as a piece of art, something very unique and one of a kind, that it's not anywhere. Right. Uh so that was my starting point, and also it's my love of handcrafts. So I wanted to combine those two on a handbag. That's where I started. And in the past, I did work with these artisans in India, so I knew the capabilities of what quality they can deliver, right? And I could see it would be a very different thing to do. And I said, you know, it's very niche, but I'm gonna give it a try. That was my starting point. Something inside you was like it was just felt right, and yeah, and I love seeing the the bags as a canvas, right? Something that that it could be a piece of art in there. That's uh it's either it's uh hand embroidery or hand beading or uh hand painting. So those are the crafts I always look uh search for, and I see how can I turn this into something that like you know, because I have emotional attachment to the bags, like you, you know, sort of you are. We live in those things, we are our houses, it has our things in it. Uh we go and do our thing in the world, and so that's um represent it represents us in a way. What we carry in there or what the back is like to show it to the world. So those artistic pieces, my feedback from my customers also is very good. So that gives me more energy to continue with the other projects that I do, uh with the scraps and everything. Yeah.
How do you handle, especially now, pushing your product direct to customer versus getting into boutiques? Because I know when you started, it was all about boutique business. And then it was all about direct to customer. How do you handle that ratio now, considering you have been around for quite some time and you do have customers that know you loyal and so forth?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I figured this out even recently, like how I can balance this, because uh, if you put your intention on the on the trade shows and boutiques, then you lose the sense of because this is for customers. We shouldn't forget the customer there. Yeah, you know, like you you say in your interviews, you always mention about that, like you know, the the mistake is you forget the customer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I agree with you. So I do uh four pop-ups in a year, and those are long pop-ups, either one month or two months. Oh wow. And my last one was two months in the West Village, just finished. So uh, and then I will do another one probably in fall for another month or two. Where do you do them? Either West Village or Soho recently. Like, are you renting out a space? Either renting a space or sharing a space with other designers. Let's say they it's a small boutique, and then we do a jewelry person and a clothing person and me, and we do it.
SPEAKER_01That's a very good idea. When did you come up with that idea?
SPEAKER_00Well, when this uh pop-up became a thing after that, there are companies you could just rent uh very short-term uh retail cases, they're out there, so uh we collaborate with them and then see if those right. We do either a month or two months, so we do that way. And the reason I want to do it's a lot of work, but the reason I want to a lot of work it's a lot of work, it takes a lot from you because it's like you know, it crashes between your pitching to the boutiques and then you gotta be at the pop up, and but also it gives me a lot of one on one communication with the customers, yeah, and and and also brings ideas for the next collection. Oh, people are gonna look for this and the especially like phone bags. I didn't know people are looking that many phone bags until I start to do pop-ups. Now I include phone bags in every collection because I know they they they're needed now. Right. That's one example, but yeah so that's how balance it now between boutiques and between the the customer between the women that I sell to that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01That is a really interesting idea. That's a do you usually use the same space over and over or do you guys always have to look for because there's so much it's such an interesting concept and I think the people listening might really be able to think about this because it does not matter where you go there's always real estate available especially now and you know to go to a broker at a storefront and just say I'd like to take the space for a month or two and negotiate terms I'm sure you're able to do so.
SPEAKER_00Yes you can or there are middle people middle person that they this is their job. They take these spaces and they rent them out short term. Right. So you can do either you can either like however it works. And well we usually do in downtown because the stores are smaller. We don't need huge spaces when we do stuff like that. So it it wasn't that challenging so far because like you said it's more available now. The
pop-up it's a pop-up era somehow it is a pop-up era everything pop-up chocolate put coffee and stuff like I see it all everywhere so that's amazing yeah it really is that's so so funny this has been really interesting so where do you see your brand going moving forward like what is the hopes wish and dream uh for your brand and where where do you want it to go i wish and dream the fashion industry becomes more more aware of uh the causes we have in this world and I hope the big names they pick one and then they do more yes they do some brands are doing great work for women empowerment for planet and all that but I think given the potential of this billion billion dollar of industry we can actually do it make a change so what is my dream with my brand to connect with like-minded brands and create collaborative collections and then uh whatever is those uh presties are going to help more women to get education because that's my chaos and in the meantime of course growing the brand into different categories to reach more customers to reach more uh people but I wish to connect more like-minded uh entrepreneurs or brands or people like you put the word out just to make change for the next generation of women because I grew up in a country that education was not given equally to girls I was a teenager in early and mid 80s I was lucky to have a father and mom and grandmother believed that education is important for a girl and that was their priority to give it to me rather than this other girl in my neighbor's daughter she was pushed to get married at age 17. Right so what made me different than that girl education yeah yeah so I heard from my dad over and over no one can take your education away no no one can take that away from you no one you you have this once you have it you have it right so that having said I know how much confidence that gave me as a woman as an immigrant woman here and then why we cannot because there's so many smart girls out there they're so bright and that like but they're not given the same equal so I hope and wish this billion dollar industry fashion industry can do more and more and more so I can be the part of it like you know Cartier has a great organization. They do a lot of work for women empowerment under their umbrella like them. So I could be maybe part of a project with Cartier or Tiffany's and do a little embroidery work for them and then that only goes to those organizations or something like that and then grow of course with it.
That's my wow yeah that is beautiful Alif how can we find you follow you and get our hands on your beautiful bags uh well I'm online it's uh www.patentofheart.com and on Instagram patent of heart tick tock patent of heart and Facebook same patent of art yeah so that's p-a t e n t of h-e-a-r-t patent of heart yeah aw wonderful thank you thank you thank you so much for joining us today I'm so happy we got to have have and have you and hear your story thank you so much for having me thanks for listening don't forget to rate and review and follow us on every single platform at handbag designer thanks so much see you next time