My name is Tytania Rose, and I have been designing handbags for about five years now. I have worked with some companies as freelance, and I have done a few private collections of my own. I have a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design in New York where I majored in Illustration. Therefore, I am very interested in textiles, beading, and the details of the making of the handbags. In the last couple of years, I have taken handbag courses at FIT to understand the patternmaking and materials side of the production. I recently launched a new collection of bags where I produce out of India. Because it is personally financed, it is small and I was not able to do any trade shows, just a commercial website at this point. My market is accessible luxury, although I am still working in attaining the perfect price. I try to use high quality leathers, but not so high that it is not affordable to a regular woman on a budget. I try to design based on couture techniques, creativity, and function.

My idea is to make luxury bags at an affordable price. I want the woman to feel like she spent a little bit of money, but got very good value. I find that most luxury bags are for only a small percentage of the female population, and I really ant to change that. Why cant a great “it” bag be affordable? If I had stronger funding, I would perhaps produce in Italy, but I would always keep my mantra the same- affordable luxury. I do not want to sell only to the wealthy. When I was a starving art student, I longed for beautiful bags. I would like that art student to be able to save up a couple of months (not years) and buy mine- and be satisfied. I feel that if it is in a certain price range, everyone can enjoy it. I have just finished the spring 2009 collection, which will feature personally designed hardware manufactured here in the US, and exotic skins from brazil. I also have started a non- profit organization, called “Nang Fah Project”. All of the proceeds from those bags go to helping the tribal women of Southeast Asia support themselves and to enhance their tribal designs and ward off prostitution, which is a devastating problem for these women. I use their tribal hand made and eco friendly fabrics to create eco friendly handbags. We plan to have a design source center set up in spring 2009 in Chiang Mai Thailand, where we will have quality controlled tribal made handbags. I will sell and market this line along with my leather goods.

I have had many struggles and fights to maintain being an independent designer, and I have never truly been properly financed which has always made it very difficult for me. One time, when I was producing out of Brazil a few years ago, I had a terrible quality control manager who was basically stealing money from me. Being very naive and green, I had no idea. To make matters worse, we were six weeks late on our shipment of production, so I sent an email requesting to hurry and rush my order as soon as possible. He then sent the entire production fed ex Saturday delivery via Porto Allegre Brazil to New York City. I then owed ten thousand dollars to Fed Ex. I decided I would topless dance for three months to pay off the money. Seriously. Another time I partnered with an older man who had been making hand bags for over thirty years. I was introduced to him by a friend in the industry, so I thought it would make a strong partnership. He in turn moved into my studio, took over 3/4th of my space with his things, made me six samples over the period of one year, and eventually stopped paying his share of the rent and squatted in my studio for over a year(I had to leave my own studio!). The only way they got him out was buy selling the building.

My greatest achievement is that I am still trying to be successful. Even though some days I feel like throwing in the towel, there somehow seems to still be a fight left in there for me. After finding out about the women in southeast Asia, my own struggles to survive and succeed on my own creative abilities mirrored theirs in a lot of ways, and now I can use my know how to help them. I have really learned so much through al my falls, and I feel truly like a hand bag warrior! And it will make me the happiest and proudest woman alive if I am able to sell the tribal products and help these girls, as well as continue to develop and create beautiful couture style bags for women everywhere, rich and not so rich!