We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Inga Mikhasiuta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Inga , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

Despite the fact that I have a Master Degree in Linguistics Science, which I received when living in my home country in Eastern Europe, I’ve always been into Fashion Design and creativity. When I moved to New York 17 years ago I attended FIT to learn more about Fashion world. Soon I started my Image Consulting business, helping people with their style and appearance. Even though I was working in a Fashion industry I still felt like I was missing creativity, the ability to create something by myself.

One day I was browsing on Instagram and came across that gorgeous Chanel bag. It was all covered in Swarovski crystals. The bag was stunning! And so the price. It was $32,000 for a small size bag. So I thought to myself, why not to try to customize my own Chanel bag in the same way? I just had to find the highest quality crystals and the glue that would work for this type of work. After searching the Internet for about a week and watching a lot of videos on Youtube, I’ve learned that the embellishment process of placing each individual crystal by hand is actually called Strassing. And that the best crystals are made in Austria by the brand Swarovski. I was able to find a distributor of Swarovski here in the US, and ordered 10 packs of crystals. That’s how my journey with the Strassing began…

I must admit, it was not as easy as it seemed. It took me about a week to finish 5×5 inches area. But I really enjoyed the process and didn’t notice the time passed by. So after about 3 months of work, I was finally able to finish the bag. I’ve used about 30.000 pieces of crystals for the medium size bag. I was so proud of myself and happy. But not for too long… As the glue dried it became more and more crumble. And soon crystals started to fall off. It turned out I didn’t use the right adhesive. which was very important for that type of work. All my hard work was wasted! But I didn’t give up.

It took me about two years to learn all about strassing, different types of crystals, develop my own techniques, learn about adhesives and materials that work best, tools and paints. And only then I was able to call myself a Professional.

More than 10 years have passed since then. Today my clientele includes many celebrities like Cardi B, Paris Hilton, Trisha Paytas, Saweetie, Prive Porte, members of Qatar Royal family and Indian princesses.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve answered this question in the previous one. But here are more details about myself:

My name is Inga Mikhasiuta, I am a founder of Blinga Design LLC, a luxury handbag customization service, that specializes in a one-of-a-kind hand embellishment called strassing. Blinga Design is based in New York but we work with clientele all over the world.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I’ve got most of my good and loyal clients from Instagram. It’s not really important how many followers you have there, it’s about meeting the right one. Some of my celebrity customers I’ve got from collaboration with Prive Porter, a luxury boutique in Florida. The owner contacted me on Instagram asking if I could customize an Hermes handbag for Cardi B and her daughter. I was very happy to do that. I ended up creating a beautiful crystal rainbow design on Kulture’s (Cardi B daughter) Hermes handbag and a gorgeous pink one for Cardi B. Later, this rainbow bag was all over the Internet. Cardi B paid $48,000 for her daughter’s bag. I’ve got other very good customers from Instagram too, including Royalties from India and Middle East countries. I also created custom products for Swarovski campaigns.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I am a single mom, and I raise my daughter by myself. Responsibility is one of the main factors that gives me energy in my creative journey. But, of course, I wouldn’t be able to do it without enjoying what I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: blingadesign.com
• Instagram: blingadesign