We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Robinson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The Laura Faye you see now was more of an end result to a very full process. If you didn’t already know, I’m a self-taught leather seamstress which came as a result of dabbling in other facets of the fashion industry, first. I went to school for fashion merchandising and left college thinking I’d go into Buying, Merchandising, or even personal styling (which I did, and still do on the side). But, the year before my undergraduate graduation I partnered with someone and started a jewelry company where we handmade original pieces. At that time, we had our pieces in several boutiques and wanted to expand beyond jewelry, to handbags. The problem, was, neither one of us knew, at the time, how to make bags! So, I said I would be the one to make the bags while she focused on the jewelry. I borrowed a sewing machine from my mom’s friend, sat at my kitchen table, hopped on YouTube and made my first bag out of faux leather/vinyl. After a while, we parted ways in business but I developed a love for making bags and started the Laura Faye brand. The idea for the nam was easy because I wanted it to be purposeful. So, Laura is my mom’s middle name, and Faye was my grandmother’s name.

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.

For starters, my name is Jessica, not Laura….but if you call me Laura it’s ok haha. I’ve always had love for fashion but I never actually considered that being a designer would be my profession. Even introducing myself now as a designer is a bit weird for me- especially because personal styling was my sole lane for a really long time. But I’m happy to be where I am now. I am a fashion designer specializing in leather and vegan leather handbags, to start. During Covid, I took the time to completely restructure the Laura Faye brand. I stared with changing the logo, and the overall look and feel of the entire brand. Then I created an original design exclusive to Laura Faye called “The Mini Clutch”, which I’m so proud of. This bag is unlike anything else you’ve seen and it definitely sets the Laura Faye brand apart from others. It was originally intended to be a handheld clutch, but of course sometimes women just want to be hands free! So, a few months ago I began offering a crossbody version and I’m so glad I did. This bag I make myself, but we also now have a manufacturing company for out other designs, so we’ve experienced quite a bit of growth within the last year.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I’ve certainly had to understand how to work smarter and not harder when it comes to attaining clients. For the first season of my entrepreneurial career I popped up as a vendor at so many different shows and sold bags direct to consumer. I even had a season where I leased a kiosk in the middle of downtown mall for several months and sold bags to women who walked by every day. But to me, that’s the long road. Recently I discovered the world of wholesaling in order to be in stores and boutiques. There’s an entire wholesale market I never tapped into until now. The beauty is, buyers come to these trade shows and you don’t have to solicit them because they’re already looking for you. They want to find new brands to put in their stores. And once they place a wholesale order, you can find yourself in front of women all over the country who frequent their boutiques. So to me, even though it cuts into the profit margin, it’s still a win as far as brand exposure and recognition. No matter how you found me, once Laura Faye, client, hopefully always a Laura Faye client.

Have you ever had to pivot?

This is a story I have yet to fully share, but I’ve definitely experienced the need to pivot. About two years ago I met a reality star from a popular television show on Bravo TV. She and I had several meetings and decided to enter into a partnership to design a collaboration collection for her already existing fashion brand. We had everything ready to go. We designed our labels that read “(celebrity name) by Laura Faye”, picked out the leather, hardware, inside lining, and everything else. I spent about a month manufacturing all of the bags for the collection. Without going into detail, unfortunately, we weren’t able to work out the business side of things, which was a bummer. I ended up repurposing that collection into a holiday collection that sold out. But the exposure would have been amazing. I definitely learned a lesson about business and resilience from that experience, and I honestly don’t regret it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.laura-faye.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/laura_faye
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFayeLLC
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurafayellc/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@laurafayehandbags