Luxury Without Gatekeeping With Bags For Breakfast | Emily Blumenthal & Shay Prasad

What makes a handbag truly worth carrying every day? We sit down with Shay Prasad of Bags for Breakfast to explore how years on the retail floor shaped her approach to bags as tools for life—not just status symbols. From writing deep-dive Substack essays to launching a curated vintage shop, Shay explains how storytelling, condition knowledge, and retail anthropology turn casual shoppers into thoughtful collectors. Along the way, she shares how to judge patina versus wear, why function matters as much as heritage, and how understanding the history behind iconic houses helps buyers make smarter, more sustainable choices.

Key Takeaways:
 • Function beats fantasy — A great bag works with your real life.
 • Patina has value — “Loved” pieces often carry more character than pristine ones.
 • Context sharpens taste — Knowing a brand’s history leads to better buying decisions.

🎧 Listen now for a thoughtful look at vintage handbags, collecting, and choosing pieces that truly earn their place in your rotation.

Our Guest:
 Shay Prasad is the founder of Bags for Breakfast, a platform dedicated to thoughtful handbag collecting and vintage discovery. Drawing on years of retail experience and deep research into fashion history, she blends storytelling, education, and curation to help buyers appreciate craftsmanship, condition, and the cultural stories behind the bags they carry.

Host Emily Blumenthal is a handbag industry expert, author of Handbag Designer 101, and founder of The Handbag Awards. Known as the “Handbag Fairy Godmother,” Emily also teaches entrepreneurship at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is dedicated to celebrating creativity, craftsmanship, and the art of building iconic handbag brands.

Find Handbag Designer 101 Merch, HBD101 Masterclass, one-on-one sessions, and opportunities to book Emily Blumenthal as a speaker at emilyblumenthal.com. 

Transcript

Welcome And Mission Of Luxury Access

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can't really say luxury is accessible. That's not true. Luxury is expensive, it's not necessarily accessible, but I wanted there to be a way to still enjoy luxury and to still consume luxury, whether you're able to shop for the handbags or whether you're kind of planning out what your first designer handbag is going to be or whether you're just interested. I wanted there to be a place that offered all of it.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hi, and welcome to Handbag Designer 101, 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 seat to it all. Welcome to Jade Facade of Bags for Breakfast to Handbag Designer 101 the podcast. I love an Instagram friendship. Welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Thank you so much, Emily. I am truly so excited just to chit-chat handbags, passion, everything. So I'm very honored that you reached out. You have quite a listening resume of yours. So I'm yeah, you do. You've done so much. So I'm really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Well, listen, if I'm talking handbags and I'm the only podcast that does it, then I need to make sure I have everyone, everyone who touches that, whether it's directly or tangentially. And bags for breakfast, that in itself, I was like, how can I not talk to her and be best friends with her from Canada? Love a Canadian. Are you a lefty? Do you not a lefty? Do you write with your left hand? No, I write with my right hand. Okay. I just figured it was like gonna be like a triple bonus. I collect left-handed people. I tried and it never took. Although my senior year in college, I was so bored that I figured, like, well, if anybody ever finds me for like doing a crime I didn't commit, I really should be good at like writing with my left hand. So I could be like, it's not, I don't know. It's just, you know, the things you come up with in a Russian lit class, you know? But yeah. I had mental free time. So anyway, we were chit-chatting before. You are so cute. I want to shade all. I'm dying. How did all of this come to pass? Like, what is bags for breakfast? And then we'll work backwards.

Introducing Bags For Breakfast

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Okay, let's do that. What is bags for breakfast now? So, what bags for breakfast is now is it is a place for anyone who's interested in fashion to consume fashion in different ways. So we offer fashion consumption through fashion history education. So I write a blog on Substack and I also post on Instagram. The Substack is a deeper dive into various topics, and then the Instagram is just kind of fun little tidbits that maybe you didn't know about before. And then coming up on February 11th, we are launching our first collection of curated pre-love designer handbags. So the whole idea for me was I wanted because you can't really say luxury is accessible. That's not true. Luxury is expensive, it's not necessarily accessible, but I wanted there to be a way to still enjoy luxury and to still consume luxury, whether you're able to shop for the handbags or whether you're kind of planning out what your first designer handbag is gonna be, or whether you're just interested. I wanted there to be a place that offered all of it. So that's sort of what we built.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

So what do you cover on your substack?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah. So we just finished a alphabet handbag designer series where I went through the entire alphabet 26 weeks, and each week I would ask my audience, what designer do you want to learn about and what handbag do you want to learn about? So Was it alphabetical?

unknown 4:11

Yeah.

Education Through Substack And Instagram

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Like was it like this is the week of C or how did it work? Exactly like that. This is like next week is letter B. What do you guys want to learn about? That kind of thing. So the Instagram was just a little like 30 to second to minute uh deep dive on whatever designer or handbag we were talking about that week. And then the substack really gets into it, just a little bit more of a deeper dive.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

So you had said that you had a background in retail, which is not for the faint of heart. Did you know when you were doing this that you would have to be front-facing on the camera to talk about that? Was that comfortable? Was that natural just because you'd done so much retail talking, or was it like, did it take a minute for you to find your footing?

Retail Roots And On-Camera Confidence

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Every single retail job I had, I started on the sales floor. And I eventually became some sort of online personality for that social. So it's really interesting when I look back at my career path. I always started on the sales floor. That's what I love. But then it with four different companies, it turned into okay, four days a week on the sales floor, one day a week making videos showing off our product. So I really, really genuinely love creating content. I love being in front of the camera, but it's not even really about the camera. I think I just I like interacting and I like, I don't really know what the right word is, but I enjoy it. I enjoy chit-chatting. I enjoy talking.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Can I tell you something? I learned this with my very first high-powered, really coveted internship and advertising again, a hundred lifetimes ago, where I kept saying, I really, really wanted to be the salesperson, the one that pitches, the one that goes out, that talks to customers, that the one that's going to essentially be the one trying to figure out what to buy, like what was needed. I'm like, I'll can't speak. And she said to me, you would never open up a clothing store if you didn't know how to shop. So you have to get into the mindset of a buyer before you could ever be a customer. I think that's a much more clear way of saying that. So, in that, learning how to be a buyer, and really I don't think you could have ever gotten to this point from Ex for Breakfast to actually carry inventory unless you had spent that time working with customers retail anthropologically, watching them shop, interact, see, feel, touch. And I think so much of that that people are so quick to become and go on the creative side and neglecting that whole lifetime of experience of going out because you can be a consumer and I love to shop, or I love handbags, or I love Gucci, I love Lueve, I love, I love all these brands and I know so much. However, until you're on the other side, like what you've done, you never really understand because you need to be fluent in not only the DNA, but the shortcomings and understanding how people wear it, what doesn't fit, what season. Oh, you know what, this won't work if you're wearing a jacket. This doesn't have a crossbody strap, actually, and saying it in very polite way, like you might have lunch lady arms, no disrespect, but like it doesn't work. You shouldn't be wearing something over your shoulder because the essence of a handbag is an extension of you, your body. And it's, you know, people say they dress stems up, you know, shoes up. But a lot of people, which I think we, you know, your bag is incorporated into the whole essence of who you are for that moment and what brings you joy. So unless you've had your experience, I think that would set you apart from many other people because you've had that. I'm sorry, I just rambled all that just to say what you did is probably right.

Retail Anthropology And Customer Insight

SPEAKER_00 8:09

No, thank you so much for saying that. And I think it's there's so many different things I could touch on here. But the most important thing I think about is just with social media, people see this sort of like glamour of marketing and content creation, and they see just a surface level of it. But really, all of my learning and exactly what you said, I would not be able to even think about doing what I'm doing right now had I not had gosh, I've been in retail for 10 years almost. And it's you hit the nail on the head too, where let's say you hadn't had that retail experience. You are really single-focused on what your shopping habits are, what your style is, what you know, but you need to think what does everybody else look for? And that's something you can really only get when you're on the other side of it. But yeah, the learnings that I've had in retail are absolutely invaluable. And we were chatting earlier that sometimes people don't really take retail as a serious job, but you know what? Whatever, I'll let them think that. But things from buying, from learning how to do inventory, from just invaluable lessons.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Invaluable- Even so much as I bet your closet is very neat and organized. I don't know. Mine is is not. I'd be terrified if anyone came in and looked, but there have been enough shows on TV or whatever, like Housewives or so forth, where people have rooms dedicated and closets dedicated to storage and product and this, and and you know, going back to clueless with Polaroids, like all those things. The normal person does not either have the real estate or the patience or the wherewithal. So, how learning even the simplest element of inventory, how to put, how to pack, how to find, what's the best way, how not to compromise the product, especially when you're dealing with product within the circular market. All those things matter so very much.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

So much. And I don't know how you learn it. I mean, I guess you if you you just figure it out, but had I not had the experience that I had with all those little things, like where you don't even think about packing, you don't even think about storage, you don't think about any of that stuff. Had I not had that experience, it would this would have taken me a lot longer to conceptualize and to bring into reality.

How Loved Is Too Loved

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Can I ask you something just from a layman's perspective? So people buy toys, right? Like antique toys, and they keep them in the packaging and they don't play with them. And therefore they gain value. You buy a Birkenbag or you buy a Chanel or whatever product within the circular market. The goal as a buyer, as a consumer buyer, is to buy something that's had the least amount of usage. However, the whole purpose, as far as I can say, is you're buying a product to enjoy it. So how do you, as someone who's now on both sides, how do you present a product? How loved is it? What's too loved? What makes something unsellable? If I have this product and I've worn it to death, but now I'm done, I think the season's done, but I know it's sellable. Like what how loved is too loved, or is there not such a thing? If you ever wanted to start a handbag brand and didn't know where to start, this is for you. If you had dreams of becoming a handbag designer but aren't trained in design, this is for you. If you have a handbag brand and need strategy and direction, this is for you. I'm Emily Blumenthal, handbag designer expert and handbag fairy godmother, and this is the handbag designer 101 masterclass. Over the next 10 classes, I will break down everything you need to know to make, manufacture, and market a handbag brand, broken down to ensure that you will not only skip steps in the handbag building process, but also to save money to avoid the learning curve of costly mistakes. For the past 20 years, I've been teaching at the top fashion universities in New York City, wrote the handbag designer Bible, founded the handbag awards, and created the only handbag designer podcast. I'm going to show you like I have countless brands to create in this in-depth course from sketch to sample to sale. Whether you're just starting out and don't even know where to start up again, or if you had a brand and need some strategic direction, the handbag designer 101 Masterclass is just for you. So let's get started, and you'll be the creator of the next it bag. Join me, Emily Blumenthal, in the Handbag Designer 101 Masterclass. So be sure to sign up at Emily Blumenthal.com slash masterclass and type in the code INCAST to get 10% off your masterclass today.

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Function, Patina, And Repair Culture

SPEAKER_00 13:05

I think it's different for everybody. For me personally, when I'm shopping, not only for myself, but also for my brand. Too loved does exist, and too loved to me means when the function of the bag is compromised. For example, maybe the strap is so worn where you're nervous that it's gonna snap on your shoulder, or maybe the enclosure isn't working properly and it's really hard to get in and out of. When the function of the bag is compromised, that's when I think it is too loved. That being said, depending on the kind of person you are, you can also find a bag that you are absolutely in love with. And if you are committed to that bag, you will take it somewhere to like leather surgeons, anywhere, and get it fixed and up to par. So for me, my brand, myself, condition is subjective, and this is what's so hard. But I really like a piece that has life to it. And where that line is is so hard to say. But a good example is I always say my dream bag is a worn-out Birkin. I want a big Birkin 40. I want it to be slouchy. I want to throw it over my shoulder. I don't want to have to worry about it. I love the look, and that's me. And again, as we were talking about earlier, as a business owner, I would be doing myself a disservice to think that I know everything. I don't. And this is gonna be my first collection. So I had in mind my audience, and my audience loves vintage, they love a story. So that's what I shop for, and that's what I shop for now. A little bit of wear and tear is totally fine by me. If anything, it adds to the character of the bag. But if it has a cool story, it has a cool background, then not a lot else matters in terms of condition to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I don't think you should downplay, you know, and I would say this as a female business owner, creator, entrepreneur, whatever the flip you want to call it. I feel like we are inherently taught to almost apologize on our way in. And I hear you doing that. And like to anybody who's listening, it's like it's always ideal if you've been front-facing within the market, right? That you've had the opportunity to work with customers and you've had the luxury to really get into the mindset of what they're looking for, what they're shopping. And I love the word retail anthropology, but truly like understanding how and way they shop, not virtually, but like in a retail environment. And I think it seems like the natural progression for you to go into actually investing in product. So I don't think you need to say that you don't know everything. I don't think anybody knows everything. I truly like I think there's something to say about that. Like I think there's a difference about perhaps speaking with confidence unapologetically, versus saying you know everything. And I think there's a fine line. So I'm I would like you to retract that you don't know everything because I think you know a lot, and that's why people listen and are curious and will want to learn more about this.

Owning Expertise And Confidence

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Just the fact that you said this is a huge wake-up call for me because this anyone who knows me closely, and I do speak about it on my personal page too. The hardest thing for me now moving forward, my challenge as a business owner is going to be embodying my confidence and stepping into my knowledge because I do know a lot. I am an expert in my field. Saying I'm an expert doesn't mean that I know everything. You're right. But it is, it has been such a tough journey for me to really speak about what I'm doing with confidence. A big portion of that is what we touched on earlier. The response I have from people when I say my work experience in retail, it's not really respected the same way, say, I don't know, I come from a fully medical family, and I have the most supportive family in the entire world. But the respect that you get when you say I'm working in retail is just not the same as if you say I'm a medical professional.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

And that's but I think that comes from how you grew up and the expectation of what you should be. So I think that's not a you thing, that's like the background thing. And like if you're growing up as a first-generation immigrant family, the expectation is that you are gonna do your family a solid and go into the responsible, you don't ever need to worry, your life will be better than mine. And to go into retail just seems antithetical to why someone would move continents, start over when you're being scrappy and cute, when they had to come here and just be scrappy and not have the opportunity to be cute and charming along the way.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Well, 100%. You hit the nail on the head. And like I said, I am very lucky because my family has been so supportive, but it's definitely eye-opening to hear you notice the way that I spoke with a lack of confidence. That's very eye-opening for me, and it's really important for me to hear. So what number child are you? Pardon? What number child are you? I'm the youngest.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And of how many?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Just one other. I just have two. Uh my one sister.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

And is she a doctor lawyer? Something responsible? She oh gosh, she works in cancer research. Okay, so that makes sense. So you're the black shape of two, but still did everything responsibly. I get it. I see you. That's I and my older sister's a lawyer and follows, doesn't color out of the lines. You can't make jokes, everything is taken literally. So when people say literal, that's what I mean. Like I'll say so. So I think kudos to you because you've always been working. And I think being on your feet, dealing with customers, it is just as hard, it's not as hard as cancer, let's be honest. But yes, you're also dealing with apples and oranges, right? But you're also dealing with people who may or may not have had cancer and you're helping them bring joy. So where's the line of difference?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

You know, like I will stand behind this always. Retail is one of and I've done serving as well. So just any customer-facing job is one of the most difficult things you can do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Because you're in a spot where people can actually complain about you, whereas if you're a cancer person, it's all gratitude. So, you know, like you're the one who's gonna deal with the brunt of their bad day, not her.

Social Media Subjectivity And Critique

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Another offshoot too with the confidence thing is social media has just really become I love social media, I always will, but there is a level of needing to step lightly and just and if I say the what people and in the realm of fashion, what people are forgetting is that fashion inherently is subjective. That's just how it is. Yeah. And yet people are so easily offended or they are so easily able to say you're wrong or your opinion is wrong. It's such a crazy time where I have such differing feelings of I love social media, and then I'm also afraid of social media because people have the power to say whatever. But just to bring it back to fashion is fashion is subjective, and people really forget about that. And people very much feel that they can say whatever they want to say on these platforms. And so that also has a, you know, I make myself small almost, and I say I don't know everything because I don't want to get these rude comments. And it's like that is just the reality of life, and that's the reality of being on these platforms. Gotta get used to it. So talk about the product that you're selling.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

What is bags for breakfast going to have available for purchase? I'd love to learn more.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yes. Okay, so really the whole thing with bags for breakfast too is I was listening to your interview with Wale, and he said something that just wrinkled all the time. And he said, the product doesn't matter, it's the story that matters. And I get chills as I say it because really I can't explain it, Emily. The story to me, the story brings me so much joy. It brings me so much joy and it makes me so excited. And sometimes when I look at other resale sites, again, every resale seller has an audience, but I want more. I want to know a little bit more about the bag that you're selling. So our first collection is going to be eight pre love handbags that have been sourced from around the world. We work with entropy, so everything is entropy authenticated.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

We've had him, we've had uh the founder of Entropy on also. So you gotta find that episode.

unknown 21:59

So

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Pleasantly surprised by all of the people that you've had the pleasure to interview. It's amazing. But yeah, so every handbag, I think six out of the eight of them are vintage, and then two of them are on the older side. But they're ones that I felt really excited about. And with every bag, I just do a little bit of a history deep dive. I want to know what time period is this from, if I can, because it is very hard with vintage bags. I want to know who was the creative director of that time. I want to know what was going on in the world at that time. I'm really excited. I'm really, really excited about it. So every handbag I am going to start this week and lead up on our Instagram. Every handbag will have a little bit of a backstory. But when you go to actually shop the handbags, it has a story and it has like its description and condition, all that kind of stuff. But the main part is it has its story. So you can learn a little bit about the life that it had because sustainability is also really important to me. And I do find that when I know more about my pieces, I'm more likely to hang on to them for longer. And I'm more excited about them. It's not just another handbag that I'm adding to my closet, like, oh, I need a pink handbag. I don't have any. Let me just go and find one. It's this is where you're gonna go for your really intentional, really special pieces. And they're at various price points too. So I'm really excited to see what the response is because I'm so excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I started my Substack and I was really, really diligent and I was writing weekly and the whole thing. And then, like everything, it kind of fell by the wayside. And now I do it every couple of weeks. Sometimes I do it once a month, and then I'll go back to doing it. You know, it's ebbs and flows. But the history of the handbag, I did like a very, very, very extensive four-part series of it, and it was the influence of technology within the history of the handbags for women, not men, and what the handbag represented and like the origin of silhouettes. I I could talk about that all day. Obsessed. It's so interesting.

Why History Beats Hype

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Oh my gosh. And I had a question once. Someone asked me why I don't speak more about contemporary. I heard you uh you don't like the word emerging. I love that. I hate it. It already exists, yes. Contemporary designers, why I don't speak more about them. And I I do, I love, I love all handbags, but it's just not my niche. And the thing that's so interesting to me is the big fashion houses that I do talk about are the ones that have built this. Like that is what the history and the backbones of this entire industry is built on. So that's what I'm interested in. This contemporary brand wouldn't be able to exist without the history of the fashion industry that has that started in like the 1800s, even like if we want to get super technical, even way before. So it's just so fascinating to me. And I do one day I'll dip more into contemporary designers, but I want I want to know the why of everything. And it really does start with the history.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

That is so spot on. The funny thing is about contemporary designers, like um they'll be they'll be vintage in 10 years because no one will know. They'll be like, oh, I didn't know. So then lo and behold, you know, the the 1990s, like you talk to someone now, they say the 90s, they think it's like the 1890s is this equivalent to that. But it's I interviewed the founders of Griyson, Pete and Joy, separately, and now they're one of the biggest brands in Korea. But during the rise of the independent designer, which was pretty hardy in like the early 2000s, there were so many brands that had moments. And you might not be, for example, hearing about Gryson now or Bak here now or B D now. And so many of those brands were acquired because they reached a certain level and now poof, they're not here anymore. So everything has its time, everything has its day, but it doesn't mean that the origin of one won't impact the other, won't impact the other. And I totally, totally agree with you on ensuring that there needs to be a why behind everything. Like even the evolution of certain kinds of zippers, the drop of a handbag, you know, like the drop of a handbag from the shoulder to where the zipper part has evolved so much from on trend it being on a shoulder, but the reality of the real customer will wear it as a crossbody and understanding what this customer is putting in it and how and what they need it for will vary based on where they live, what their socioeconomic level is. Are they from tiny.usa that has a stop sign, a Walmart, a church, a school, and a bar versus someone who's metropolitan because so many designers, when they start, assume that they're all vintage carry Bradshaw. And the reality is they so are not.

Design Evolution And Real-Life Use

SPEAKER_00 27:02

They definitely aren't. This makes me think of um, I did an interview a couple weeks ago and they asked me about the everyday handbag. What I think the most the if I were to recommend one everyday handbag, what would it be? And I said, Well, I can't because everyone's everyday is different. For me, I don't carry much with me. I don't need to. If it fits my cell phone, I'm done. But for someone who has kids or who is commuting or they have an office they're going to, like I'm at, I'm at home. If I'm stepping out, it's for a dinner or to run some errands. But it just makes me think, yeah, there's so many factors behind the why. And I yeah, I like learning about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Oh my goodness. Shay, this has been a delight. I want to have you back because I want to hear the State of the Union of uh bags for breakfast once you get going. How can we find you, follow you? And once this runs, it will probably be post-launch. So share all that info.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

So you can find us at www.bagsforbreakfast.co.co. And then on Instagram, you can find us at bags.for dot breakfast. Oh, amazing. Thank you, Shay. Thank you so, so, so much, Emily.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review and follow us on every single platform at handbagdesigner. Thanks so much. See you next time.