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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Celebrity is the
most successful tool in fashion marketing these days.
Jessica Simpson wears a certain T-shirt, and it disappears
from stores overnight.
So how better to attract attention to
quirky handbags than to announce they are in the hands
of personalities such as Paula Abdul, Halle Berry, Hilary
Duff and Jada Pinkett Smith?
That's what Los Angeles entrepreneur
Katie Main thought when she learned her line of "Kitsch"
bags was selected for the gift baskets at the prestigious
Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards last month.
"For better or for worse, we love
celebrities," says Main, on a trip home to visit
her family in Kansas City, Kan. "A lot of people
look to them for guidance."
Main, a quiet woman with staunch determination,
went to New York City after college to work as an editor
for DC Comics and promoted Superman and the film "Batman."
But she began to feel pulled by the creative
urge when she started decorating her home. She couldn't
find interesting pillows, she said, so she went shopping
for vintage fabric and made her own.
Her first Hollywood-type ego boost came
when she met the brother of someone who worked on the
set of "Friends." He managed to get her pillows
used in the show, placed on Joey's couch during the last
season.
If she could make pillows, she decided,
she could make handbags. The next thing she knew, she
was sitting at her dining-room table elbow-deep in feathers
and crystals. She was encouraged when she sold some bags
to a boutique with a clientele of actors near the studio
where she worked.
Her style is slightly offbeat, whimsical
and a bit flashy. One of her first bags, "Puppy Love,"
is a structured, ladylike clutch decorated with two pink
schnauzers. "Cotton Candy" is a puff of marabou.
The bag given to the celebrities was "Pure Fluff,"
covered in ostrich feathers. Her bridal bags are embroidered
with crystals.
"Women who shop at these little
boutiques don't want to see themselves," she says.
Eventually she gave into a lifelong love
of fashion and became a full-time bag designer. She flew
to New York and found a manufacturer who would sell her
the basic bag forms. She haunted downtown Los Angeles
shops in search of feather boas and beads.
She added other boutiques to her clientele
list, and when she was staying at the Hard Rock Hotel
in Las Vegas not long ago, sold the line to the buyer
of the gift shop. The bags, priced from about $60 to $1,110,
are available on www.kitschpurses.com. Today, she has
moved beyond the dining-room table, but still does most
of the work alone, with back-up artisans to help when
she gets too busy.
And she will not be surprised if that
happens soon. Just wait until fashion devotees spot Berry
or Jamie Lynn Spears toting their purple "Pure Fluff"
bags.
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