Handbag Designer 101: Everything You Need to Know About Designing, Making, and Marketing Handbags [Hardcover]

Emily Blumenthal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2011

Handbag Designer 101 is the bible for handbag designers or women who aspire to make their own bags. Included in the book are instructions for creating the fifteen essential bag styles—clutch, hobo, tote, and more—made simple with easy-to-follow how-to illustrations, suggested difficulty levels, and color photography. Advice from famous bag designers and today’s hottest indie designers accompany each pattern.

Also included is the inside scoop on turning your handbag hobby into a successful business. From designing, to making, to marketing, Handbag Designer 101 teaches you everything you need to know.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Handbag Designer 101 is the bible for those aspiring to make their own bags. Included in the book are instructions and patterns for creating fifteen essential styles—clutch, hobo, tote, and more—made simple with easy-to-follow how-to illustrations and advice from famous bag designers and today’s hottest indie designers. Also included is the inside scoop on turning your handbag hobby into a successful business. From designing to making to marketing, Handbag Designer 101 teaches you everything you need to know.

 

Author Emily Blumenthal is the founder of the Independent Handbag Designer Awards, a fashion event in New York City presented by InStyle magazine and sponsored by Swarovski, Timberland, Singer, BurdaStyle, and more. She spearheads the website handbagdesigner101.com and designed the Yasmena bag, a favorite on the red carpet that has appeared on Sex and the City and has been sold at discerning department stores including Henri Bendel, Bergdorf Goodman, and Bloomingdales.

 

About the Author

Emily Blumenthal is the founder of the Independent Handbag Designer Awards and spearheads the website www.handbagdesigner101.com. She designed the Yasmena bag that has appeared on Sex and the City and has been sold at discerning department stores such as Henri Bendel, Bergdorf Goodman, and Bloomingdale's.

www.handbagdesigner101.com

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Voyageur Press; First edition (September 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760339732
• ISBN-13: 978-0760339732
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Major Editing error!!, December 5, 2011

By 

Noodle "Purse Hoarder" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Handbag Designer 101: Everything You Need to Know About Designing, Making, and Marketing Handbags (Hardcover)

I admire the author for wanting to share this information. It is very obvious she is passionate about purses! Gotta love that! :)

However, the other aspects of this book were disappointing.

I DID spend a lot of money at Kinko's enlarging the patterns per the books instructions--1st off, I actually spent MORE money at Kinko's than I did on this book! I was annoyed that Full Size patterns weren't included--it is expensive to have them enlarged to the proper size and even worse to try to do it at home on a regular printer!--even if you did try to do it on a regular printer, there are no grid-marks or guidle ines to line up the multitude of pages you would need to print to enlarge them--and now that I know they have to be 400%--most home printers don't enlarge that high!

But nonetheless, I dropped the 5 patterns I wanted enlarged off at Kinkos and left--came back to $3.29 copies EACH and knew immediately that they were WRONG! I was *Steaming!!* mad--But worse-- I feel bad for anyone who would not realize this and then go through the process of trying to use these 200% copies to actually construct something! I am a little perplexed about why full-size patterns were not included ??? You can get them now in Magazines so it surely does not make sense why this book would not have them included.

The written instructions in the book are also not good--I don't think the author actually wrote the project construction instructions so I can't fault her for that- but I wish she would have had several people USE these written instructions and edited before putting them in this book. I have designed my own purses and am a sewer --so have read many instructions for a multitude of things from bags & purses to clothes & housewares and these instructions are some of the worst I've read. I make bags without patterns and can figure it out without the instructions (and I stopped reading them because they verbiage is off and does not make sense in parts), but if you have never sewed or are a newbie--this may be troublesome for you. You may think you don't have what it takes or that you can't read a pattern--but please know that most directions are not written this badly!

There was no new information in this book that I had not heard, learned or read before just a repeat of previous books I've read or classes I've taken.

The concept of this book is a wonderful idea and as mentioned I do admire the authors passion for purses! If you are wanting to learn some info--it may be semi-helpful. But if you are trying to make a bag--save your money!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, September 26, 2011

By 

jessica4203 - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Handbag Designer 101: Everything You Need to Know About Designing, Making, and Marketing Handbags (Hardcover)

This book is great for patterns to experiment with or basic info that you can mostly find on the Internet with little time and research. The harder info to come by are things like Italian hardware suppliers, great manufacturers in the US and overseas, and THE places to actually buy leather. I enjoyed reading the book of which took me an hour to read and flip through the pictures. Good book but very basic Information.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, almost 5 star, September 19, 2011

By 

UrsaS - See all my reviews

This review is from: Handbag Designer 101: Everything You Need to Know About Designing, Making, and Marketing Handbags (Hardcover)

I just bought this book and my impression from the first quick read is that this is a really great book, a must for everyone thinking of making their own bags or even starting a line. Very well thought out and executed.

Looking at the instructions i noticed though that with every bag it says you should scale the pattern by 200 percent. Since all the bag pattern pieces are layed out on one page it seems to me this must be a mistake.

Since I love the book and I am almost certain that I will use a pattern or two I will just scale the patterns depending on how big of a bag I will want. It would be much simpler though if the scale factors were written correctly ...

I hope in the next edition this will be corrected ... and i hope that the corrections will be published somewhere (online) so I can insert them in my copy.