How To Make A Pocketbook
Under Palms At The Edge Of The Gulf
Pray for rain. No ideas on a sunny day. Pour a cup of coffee. Take out the garbage. Line up 100 straight pins. Turn on the cell phone. (Someone will call.) Crank up the fusing machine, the die-cutter, and four Juke industrial sewing machines. Must create.
 I am a fabric addict so in my factory I have enough to make handbags for the next twenty years. Ergo, choosing a fabric isn't easy. Since Easter is coming up I choose yellow, even though I know it's a hard color to sell. We're in a recession and I decide we need something cheery.
This year I'm concentrating on three main purse body shapes. They use about 32 parts evenly distributed – which is more than can be said for our own body shapes.
Making a handbag is a little like building a house. First you build the foundation and then begin layering on fusing (a technical term), padding, stiffening followed by the leather, magnetic snaps, and finally the hardware. Straps, without which most purses are naked, are the last step.
When I first started making handbags I sent the leather for my straps to a manufacturer in New York - the same company that makes straps for Coach. My magnificent order was for 5 to 10 bags while Coach was ordering straps for 500,000 bags. They didn't exactly laugh at me – probably because they were too stunned. They did however suggest that I should expand my production and get back to them when I had. In the end I learned how to make my own. They are not machine produced, but are hand-rolled on the edges which make them far more comfortable than their mass produced brethren. However – do I make money doing this??? Never mind. I make something I am proud of.
Years ago, I sold my first company to Vera Bradley which was smaller then. As part of the sale, I was to work there adapting my designs for her. I learned a great deal about production, but the best ideas can come from unlikely places I was picking up a shoe at a wonderful repair shop on US 41 called Silvo's, when I noticed he was using glue from a big vat to seam pieces together. He told me it was better than stitching – and production is so much easier. And who knows what sniffing the glue all day long is doing! I am considered a little unusual in any case, so probably nothing noticeable.
Sonja Benson is the name of my small handbag boutique on Third Street South. We refer to it as "Pocketbook Theatre". It's a car ride from the factory to the store making it the perfect distribution system for my latest handbag collection. Please come to visit and if you are very interested, I will tell you more.
Sonja Benson
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