Chris and Rae of Deluxe Junque: Making Handbags with 50’s Style
A passion for 50’s style animates Baltimore handbag designers Chris Caprinolo and Rae Lockard of Deluxe Junque. They have just got into making handbags this year (2006) but say it all happened pretty much overnight and they are now selling their handbags from their website, on eBay, at shows and hope to be in stores soon.
Chris and Rae first started making bags “because we could never find just the right bag. We’d like this part of one, and that part of another, but never seemed to find it all in one bag. Now that we design our own, there are never enough events to use them all!”
Chris and Rae explained how they started selling their handbags, “First our friends saw our own personal creations and wanted a bag of their own and basically it exploded from there. We immediately went to eBay and listed some bags there due to their global dominance and then within days built a website. It pretty much happened overnight.”
They described their handbags by saying, “Our handbags pretty much reflect our style, life and love of the 1950’s. We love hot rods, motorcycles, tattoos and the rockabilly scene and feel our purses reflect our kitschy lifestyle.”
They get their ideas for their bags from all over. “A movie we’ve just watched, a show we’ve just been to, or just a conversation will get our creative juices flowing. Once we start though it’s hard to stop, we can just keep going and going and going.”
Chris and Rae feel that the strengths they bring to their bags are “neatness, attention to detail, superior customer service, 20+ years in retail industry. I like to think we bring unpredictability to our products – you never know what is going to be offered next.”
They also say that their “technique improves every time we get to work. You learn from experience and doing things more than once. We are always looking for ways to increase productivity and looking for ways to reduce costs to pass those savings on to our customers.”
If you are interested in buying one of Chris and Rae’s bags you can find them at a couple of places online, including www.deluxejunque.com, deluxejunque.etsy.com, www.retromart.net and on eBay. They also sell at various shows and hope to be in a few boutiques before the holidays.
