Entrepreneur Celeste Austin is teaming up with a national manufacturer to produce handbags for her Baton Rouge-base brand SavvyRoot.
As 225 reports, this means the 30-year-old, who handcrafted her entire line of handbags as recently as last December, can fill orders faster.
It also means she can spend more time doing what she loves: designing and meeting her customers face to face.
“There are so many things I want to do, like big totes, but I just don’t have the equipment. I thought it was time to leave that up to the big dogs and focus more on the designing,” she says.
SavvyRoot’s spring 2016 collection includes leather totes and handbags such as the Aster Crossbody, Charleston Zip Tote and the Jolie Zip Tote.
The shift to manufacturing has meant lots of trial and error, Austin says. She adds that she still plans to handcraft her signature snap scarf or “snap cowl,” the first item in her leather accessory line.
But besides spending a lot of time “Googling everything” and learning the manufacturing side of her business, the handbag change has also generated a hefty dose of excitement, like when she sees her design transformed into a product sample for the first time.
“There’s so much that goes into it,” she says. “It’s a lot of back and forth with the manufacturer.”
But she doesn’t mind the extra work when it means guaranteeing the product meets her high standards.
Austin meets challenges with tenacity, pushing herself, for example, to find lower price points. Her bags currently range from $52 to $170 and are made with materials like genuine leather and calf hair.
