Elisa Kennemer: Practical But Stylish Handbags
Ohio handbag designer and stay-at-home mom Elisa Kennemer started collecting fabric at about four or five years of age. Her first bag she says was made “out of sheer need” but since then she has created many bags which she sells from her website and a couple of local stores, but she also hopes to be on Amazon soon.
“I started collecting fabric when I was four or five. I had a very small sewing machine and my mom would give me all her scraps. My favorite game was ‘fabric store’ where I would lay them all out and pretend to sell them. It wasn’t until high school that I actually took my first sewing class. One of my favorite classes in college was a textile class where we actually got to burn fabrics to see how each type (such as cotton, acrylic, etc.) responded. I created my first bag out of sheer need. I tried a number of diaper bags and just couldn’t find anything that worked for me so I made myself a bag with a matching changing pad and blanket for my baby. It grew from there.”
Elisa says that she creates bags for people like herself, “Someone who likes something that meets their needs but is fun and stylish. I listen to my friends’ and customers’ idea - it’s all about making something that works for them.”
Elisa describes her bags as “fun not fussy” and says, “My style is practical but stylish. I am a simple kind of girl but I still want my things to be cool. Because I am a busy mom with three boys, things have to be efficient to work for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t want fun, nice things. It took me a while to learn the whole ‘less is more’ philosophy – I like to choose fun, colorful fabrics that speak for themselves. You will never see pom-poms or feathers dangling from my bags.”
Although Elisa’s husband, who has a business degree, handles most of the business side of the company, Elisa tells us, “I love to read about the successes of others. Mostly I do this in magazine and online. A good book that I read recently was The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success As You Start, Build, or Manage a Business by Martha Stewart.”
To people who are interested in starting their own handbag business, Elisa has the following advice to offer: “Follow your passion. It is so important to really love what you are doing. If you aren’t thinking about all the time, you don’t love it enough. It’s a lot of hard work, more than I ever imagined – but it is also extremely rewarding. Also think about the timing – I started two businesses previous to this one that I ended up ditching because they got too big for me to handle while my kids were still very small. Now my kids are a little older and two of them are in school full time. This has made all the difference for me. The timing was right this time.”
