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

Peri, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name of my brand is PERICHETTE. It originates from the French word “pochette” which means small purse. Weaving my name Peri into it you get Perichette. I wanted to create something unique with an edge. The name is supposed to be hard to pronounce. It might be intimidating but I wanted it to be a conversation piece, so you can be the person correcting your friends on the pronunciation…because you’ll probably dive into a deeper discussion about the newest purse.

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’m a Swiss young lady living in Miami. In 2018, I established my own handbag brand called PERICHETTE. The first collection “Goddess” was highly inspired by Ancient Empires and female Opera characters. I love the arts and I have great admiration for all artists out there. Essentially, my love for Opera was born through the love of classic literature. I grew up reading a lot of novels by Goethe, Dumas, Schiller, Lessing etc. Opera taught me to bring these stories and their characters to life by beautiful music, costumes and sceneries. But my biggest passion belongs to fashion. I’m a fashion fanatic, art lover and ocean addict. If I’m not at the theater you’ll find me by the sea. I speak six languages and love to travel for business and pleasure. During the disrupting pandemic, I launched my second venture – Studio P55, a boutique marketing studio. Looking ahead in the future, I am willing to be a part of profitable yet remarkable businesses and to be able to help other creatives realize and accomplish their passions and dreams.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

It started off sewing my purses from home with my sewing machine, all handmade and selling to friends and family. Fortunately, I developed good relationships with suppliers, so I didn’t have to hold any stock – I could order fabric and trims as orders came in, the delivery was super fast and reliable. This meant that other than the money I’d spend on samples, I didn’t have any expenses. Ideal when you’re not making any money! Of course, I did want to succeed and I realized that something had to change, so I launched my brand PERICHETTE few years later in 2018 during Milan Fashion Week. This is when I realized the power of having a strategy. I realised thatI had to focus on something and at the time there was very little in the way of customised luxury evening purses for Opera lovers. I had found my niche! Because I had found my target audience, I could start networking with them, designing to cater to their needs. It was great!
But when Covid hit things changed quickly.I was sourcing luxurious silks and satins from Spain and Italy for my high-end evening purses but all the theaters, Opera houses and events shut down and the demand for evening purses vanished. I had to rethink my whole strategy and find out what people want. So I hit reset. I had to make a conscious choice not to stray too far from my brand. I took a risk and dramatically reduced my options and only designed styles that were fairly easy to make and were earning good profit. I started to design bigger bags like tote bags and beach bags made out of affordable cotton and canvas. I had to make adjustments to meet my customer’s needs during the shutdown and to welcome back fashion in a casual way as the economy reopened. Comfort has reached a new status: With fewer social interactions and new priorities, there’s been a major shift in the way my clients approach getting dressed. Being comfortable is more important than being super fashionable. Loungewear has replaced the dressy wardrobe and bigger tote bags have replaced the smaller evening purses. The key is finding something that’s polished yet comfortable, like the PERICHETTE bags.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

As entrepreneurs and founders, we often think we have superhuman powers that give us the ability to handle every task related to our businesses. The sooner you realize that you’re not going to be the best at everything or be able to do everything yourself, the sooner you’ll be able to step out of the trenches and work on your business — not in it. This pandemic has forced a demand rethink, certainly in the earlier part of the crisis. The second factor that’s playing out here is what we wear. The product mix of that has been dramatically different, owing to the fact that we’re all now spending much more time at home. All of that has caused a real demand shock in the system. If you really understand the trends, if you make your product relevant just from a product point of view, you can still play. I like that this emphasizes that pivoting is not just changing directions: it specifically implies that one foot stays stationary. We’re already seeing that the need for self-expression doesn’t go away because we have just been through a pandemic. So to some extent, we think the demand for product that is more special, more glamorous, et cetera, will make a comeback. Stay tuned for some glamorous PERICHETTE pieces.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.perichette.shop
• Instagram: @perichette
• Facebook: Perichette – The One Of A Kind Bag

Image Credits
Yulia Kogan