Handbag Designer 101: The Stories Behind Handbag Designers, Brands, and Industry Icons

Making Luxury Bags in America with GiGi New York’s Tom Glazer and Alexia Nelson 👜✨| Emily Blumenthal & Tom Glazer and Alexia Nelson

• Emily Blumenthal • Season 1

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Join Tom Glazer and Alexia Nelson, the leadership behind Graphic Image and GiGi New York, as they reveal how they transformed a specialized bookbinding company into a thriving luxury handbag brand—all while proudly keeping production 100% American. 🇺🇸💼

With smart pivots during the 2009 recession and a bold embrace of modern retail strategies like drop-shipping, Tom and Alexia share how they built a resilient brand that blends old-world craftsmanship with new-age flexibility. 📈👜

💡 Key Takeaways:
 🔹 Pivoting Under Pressure: How GiGi New York turned crisis into major opportunity during the recession.
🔹 Owning Production: Why in-house manufacturing gives them an edge in drop-shipping, inventory control, and rapid design testing.
🔹 Zero-Waste Innovation: How repurposing leather scraps fuels sustainability—and profitability.

Whether you’re a designer, entrepreneur, or fashion enthusiast, this episode is packed with practical lessons on building a future-proof brand that stays true to its roots. 🎧

🎧 Listen now! #HandbagDesigner101 #AmericanMade #SustainableFashion #LuxuryHandbags #BrandBuilding

Our Guests: Tom Glazer and Alexia Nelson are the dynamic forces behind Graphic Image and GiGi New York, leading the charge to preserve American craftsmanship while evolving with today's fast-paced retail world.

Host Emily Blumenthal is a handbag industry expert, author of Handbag Designer 101, and founder of The Handbag Awards. Known as the “Handbag Fairy Godmother,” Emily also teaches entrepreneurship at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is dedicated to celebrating creativity, craftsmanship, and the art of building iconic handbag brands.

Find Handbag Designer 101 Merch, HBD101 Masterclass, one-on-one sessions, and opportunities to book Emily Blumenthal as a speaker at emilyblumenthal.com. 

Buy Emily’s Books: “Handbag Designer 101” & “Savvy Suzanna’s Amazing Adventures in Handbags”



Youtube: / Handbagdesigner101-ihda | Instagram:/ Handbagdesigner

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Speaker 1:

We run the business and there's never a question from season to season. Servers have no incentive not to carry you as long as you're selling Right.

Speaker 2:

And we always know what's selling. That's also the key. I have full control of which bags customers are buying. I can you know. I monitor the websites and can see what they're buying, so I know what to remake and what not to. If they're outright buying it, you have no. The control is gone.

Speaker 3:

Hi and welcome to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast, with your host, emily Blumenthal, handbag industry expert and the handbag fairy godmother. Each week, we uncover the stories behind the handbags we love, from the iconic brands and top designers to the creativity, craftsmanship and culture that define the handbag world. Whether you're a designer, collector or simply passionate about handbags, this is your front row seat to it all. Welcome, tom Glazer and Alexia Nelson of Graphic Image to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast. Welcome, guys, welcome, thank you. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Well, let's just pull the curtain and find out who Oz is behind Graphic Image. What is the story of the name having Graphic Image being a handbag brand and it's actually Gigi New York, but it isn't Talk to me about what that is.

Speaker 1:

So Graphic Image is the original company parent company that was started in 1977. And my father used the name Graphic Image because he was a graphic artist for 10 years before he intended to start his own business. So there's a long story there, but we'll just fast forward for now to where Gigi came about. The recession in 2009 was tough for everybody and we were determined to come out of it with a business that stopped going out of business, and by that I mean our main graphic image business was diaries, agendas, which we were afraid. Even though they are running strong. We were afraid that that would end. We watched our main customer department stores in the 80s all go out of business. There were so many more that we used to work with them and we said to ourselves in 2009, let's make a tote. We were actually already making totes for Victoria's Secret, of all companies.

Speaker 3:

Private label.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we were hired to develop their Airford program.

Speaker 3:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1:

And you know, we were told that we'd be involved until they didn't need us anymore, and that turned out to be better. Anyway, we took the tote bags that we had been making for them. We made one, we put them in the New York gift show, because that was the graphic image market. Today it's called New York Now, or something like that, whatever. We sold like 350 of them and we said, wow, there's a business here. So that was the beginning. As far as the name is concerned, there's really two of them. One would be Graphic Image 2, g-i-g-i.

Speaker 3:

Okay, look at that, because Gigi became a very chic name and I thought, oh, someone on trend, look at that. Okay that's.

Speaker 1:

That's special. So go ahead. It's another part of the name and I had an important Gigi in my family, not her name. What's a Gigi great grandmother?

Speaker 3:

ah, look at that. So the double entendre was had absolutely nothing to do with an actual name Gigi. Oh my God, that is epic and PS. Just a quick shout out. The banging we hear in the background is what is that?

Speaker 2:

Our factory is right outside the door where we're making our handbags. That's so cool.

Speaker 3:

Has it always been like that, when you know, as you had said before, we started recording and I don't know if this aligned with the recession but the fact that your predominant production or all of your production is done locally, like you know, peek in and you can watch it being made like that, or was one supposed to fund the other? And then it was like, screw that, we're ahead of schedule Because, as we all know, pricing is kind of key. And how do you do that with margins to try and keep something affordable, especially when you're working with leather?

Speaker 1:

Well, where do I begin?

Speaker 3:

We got time, tom, we got time. You've got a secret sauce that I think people should know about.

Speaker 1:

We began as bookbinders and nobody had ever really put a high-end fashion leather on a book in any great degree, and there were parts of being in bookbinding that we had to do ourselves because we couldn't contract it on the outside. We could contract printing and such, but eventually we got into making all the leather covers and we established really premier accounts right from the start Barney's, bergdorf, goodman, neiman's, tiffany. That leads to making books for them and having a lot of leftover material. It's called the scrap. We need to learn to make things with that for purposes of costing. So it began with book covers, went on to small leather goods and then over time now we're talking 40 years we graduated into making more and more challenging products.

Speaker 1:

So now here we are, 2011, and Gigi's had a very successful handbag launch One bag, one tote. Where do we go from here? The production on our own. A lot of it had to do with handbag launch One bag, one tote. Where do we go from here? The production on our own. A lot of it had to do with Tiffany, too. For 30 years we were the only vendor that made any Tiffany product and it had to be made here in the States. And although we still work. Now that Louis Vuitton's there, it's in a very, very different capacity. We're not running the show by any means anymore, but we needed to learn to educate ourselves on how to do it. The Victoria's Secret thing was kind of relevant, because they wanted huge numbers of products introduced on very short order and although we had to use overseas for them, because of the price point, the window of making the product was so short, we had to do all the sampling and development here.

Speaker 3:

What an education that was.

Speaker 1:

I can't even imagine. You can't imagine. So we found a way to be able to survive making product here. I'm not a China basher. We have a fantastic plant in China that we can't use anymore because of what they cost. I even go as far to say that as we were learning to make bags, they helped teach us about what we did and what was important, and it was a really, really wonderful experience. But today it's all 100% here, whether it's the books or the business card cases and such, all the way to the handbags, and I think it'd be very difficult to make an inexpensive product here and not to say that we're very expensive.

Speaker 1:

But you need to. I think you kind of need to be in luxury to afford to be able to sell into the American market. And we chose a price point for our handbags that was elevated. I believe that most people would see them as a step above the mass produced bags in the United States, but we were down below the thousand dollar bags coming out of Europe, so we're probably in our own niche. There's some other companies perhaps that we share that with, but we've found a way to make it work and it's just out of what the invention is something of necessity or whatever. We have great vendors for tanneries. They help a lot too, ensuring that the product is very, very relevant. And I guess, like I said, it's 40 years of. I could never do this overnight, but step by step, by step you know, step by step by step.

Speaker 3:

So can I ask you though, because totes are and I'm not saying this isn't high labor, but to make a tote is probably the lowest labor handbag that one could do.

Speaker 3:

So I think you know it was fortuitous that Victoria's Secret had asked you to do something like that. But to expand the labor of creating something new beyond that was that that must have been something hard to come to terms with, price point wise, because the cost, the retail cost of journals and diaries and so forth, is significantly less to the customer than a handbag that is. You know you said it's below a thousand, or what would the price point range be? And you know you've been around as long as Rebecca Minkoff, who famously made her bags, took it down to I think it was $4.95 from $5.95 or $3.95 from $4.95. She was the famous one who brought everybody's price points down purely because she did it and had all the face time. So how were you able to grapple with that and saying, okay, if we're going to expand on this category, how do we not alienate our current customer, or do we have to find a brand new customer for this, because they might not be the same people?

Speaker 1:

Well, we were fortunate. We happened to have what at times in our lives has been a cash cow and it's called graphic image. So it allowed us to be very experimental with Gigi and prior to COVID, we took on contract work. We had 50 people in the department and it was very hard to make money there. We did the coterie, the trade shows and we catered to the small store audiences. And we made kind of a switch after COVID which was to really focus on three accounts Well, mainly Saxon, neiman, lucky us today, right and now Nordstrom as well, and the department is more like now.

Speaker 1:

It's more like 12 to 15 people and we have the luxury of doing small runs and really, really controlling our costs. They're probably and we've already getting the interest because of what's going on politically in the world. There probably are some very larger opportunities out there which I hope we can resist Because it's very civilized right now and we can really focus. Like for Neiman's last year we did six bags that we didn't have to sell to anybody else. One other big customer I left. That was our website.

Speaker 1:

And it's graphic images having a great run right now. What they're doing is we started making deluxe leather editions of popular books. Wow, and this is just having. It's a giving treat with kids' books, it's all you know. It's having a great moment For those who are watching.

Speaker 3:

I'm sorry to interrupt. Make sure you turn into the YouTube version of this just purely to see what Tom just held up. It's super cool. That's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, I just wanted to jump into the handbag portion because, on the floor, what I found, too that has helped us with our costs, is we've really retained the highest skilled workers out there and we've kind of reinvented bags that we started off with.

Speaker 2:

So some of our bags that came out in 2012, we've used those core shapes to kind of reinvent them today and make them a little bit more intricate, with different handles or different pockets, interiors. So the workers have really become quite good at making and skilled at these certain silhouettes that they've, you know, gotten faster and more cost efficient for us, and I work really closely with them to make sure that our you know costing is in mind especially. You know, we change constructions but we really start with the same base. I mean, we just introduced a new bucket bag that originally came out in 2016. It looks like a completely new bag. So we try to, you know, keep those main bags and then reinvent them a little bit. So that way people are used to making them and have made them in the past, cause a lot of our you know workers who are making the bags have been here for 10 plus years. I mean, they've been here more than that 20 years. So how?

Speaker 3:

do you deal with sourcing? The leather, though? Are the tannery, the tanneries, domestic, I mean being Garmento offspring forever. Anyone who's listened. I've spoken about this. My dad was a converter and my memory was him going down south, you know, going to the mills. I remember him going to Florida, I remember where Coach used to make bags, all of those places, Like I know. One time a factory couldn't pay him so he came home with cowboy boots, Like you know the crazy things, but you know how, considering the current tariff situation and it's an interesting game of political chicken that's going on right now I believe it can't last forever. You know, at some point things have to change and go back and revert. That's just the nature and the cycle of life and clearly you guys have a leg up for what you've created and I'm sure it's hotter than ever. But how do you deal with sourcing, with that matter?

Speaker 1:

If you don't mind me asking no, no, it's fine. I consider our leather sourcing to be one of the premier strengths of the company and it's because we've been buying elevated leathers since 1990. And we got to really know all the Italian and French tanneries and made friendships by them. It's also not hard to know what are the top leathers coming out when you're buying from the same tannery Right. Our main tannery is in France, Tannery Danone. They were purchased by Hermes five years ago. Most of the large European brands have bought up different tanneries.

Speaker 3:

Did that make it difficult for you?

Speaker 1:

No, it made it difficult for the brands that they kicked out of the tannery, but we were included. It's a real asset to have a window into what the best brands are making are using for leathers and such Colors. We're surprised at how often Alexi comes up with a palette and we go into the tannery and they're making the same colors.

Speaker 3:

I do my research. He's on sound.

Speaker 1:

Yep, the other big advantage. Have you heard of Linea Pell? Of course, okay. So you go to Linea Pell and you do your homework and you work for three days, you know nine till six o'clock, the whole day, and you come away with like great stuff. We have more things here to pull on than we can do in one season. And we go not, we don't go twice a year, but we don't miss more than two shows consecutive. We'll go back in the fall, and it's basically if you're in the leather world, there's nothing you can't find there.

Speaker 1:

And for those who don't know, Linea Palais is it's in Milan, used to be in Bologna, and it's a trade show for all the tanneries all the hardware people includes the synthetic people, a lot of the fabric, you know.

Speaker 2:

All components.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I'm trying to think of anything that you would not, you couldn't buy there, that you make a leather, everything is there.

Speaker 3:

And this is the same show that's in New York, or a different one.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it is. New York is a much smaller scale. So, you won't see, I mean it's like a quarter, no no, no, it's 1%.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true, it's over there, but it does have a lot of pre-made tanneries. No, it's. You know, given the quality of what New York pulls in, we always go. It's very, but it becomes more of a meeting place than you know.

Speaker 3:

Repicking it's social hour. It's social hour, it's very social yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's hard to get down an aisle in less than two hours. Oh my God.

Speaker 3:

Has any of this taught you that, especially post-COVID, that you need to hedge your bets and make sure that you have another tannery as a backup, purely because you know if you're working with the best people and they're being acquired? There's always a chance where you might get a phone call saying, hey guys, so sorry, we can't work with you anymore. Because that, I think, is what a lot of people are dealing with right now, purely because of the tariff situation, saying, oh crap, like what are we going to do? Do we ship from China and China to Europe and then Europe back? Like there's an extra layer to put on? Like I know dealing with a lot of manufacturing, specifically that I am right now with the Middle East. They're not having any issues. Go in China and ship directly to the Middle East, it's super easy. So how do you grapple with all that?

Speaker 1:

Well, one thing to realize is that, with all the labor here, the 10% increase in the cost of our leather probably translates to no more than a 2% to 3% increase in the cost of the end product. So it's absorbable. And there's another thing which I didn't mention before, and these tanneries I don't want to share with you because they come from France and Italy. We have great, great contacts and tanneries in various continents around the world and the leather world in general. In the last 20 or 30 years has the expensive leathers have become more expensive and the basic leathers have become less expensive, right, and tanneries that can really churn out good quality leather.

Speaker 1:

And you've got to be careful If you're going to buy leather in Brazil. There's certain types of leather they make very well. Don't try to buy a smooth piece of calfskin there because it's going to be full of insect bites, right, right. So you know, as you get to know, what you can buy and wear. Like. India is the home of goatskin, all right, there's so many goatskin vendors. You can buy there Beautiful goatskins, and I understand the vulnerability you described. But fortunately, knock on wood for now we're okay.

Speaker 3:

Right, right, right right. It's so interesting, especially with, like what you said about India versus Brazil. I know there's a lot going on in one little spot in Spain where everybody's going to right now for leather and, in some cases, production.

Speaker 1:

I know there's this one one city and they're less closely. Spain is fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it really is. There's another way of buying leather, too, and not that I like advertising this. But everybody has odd lots, yeah, and we buy a lot of leather that is like $8, $9 a foot for half that because it's a leftover color or a leftover. This way, you're not giving anyone quality. I couldn't buy some of these odd lots and send it to another factory, but because I had it here. If it's not working for a handbag, I'm going to make a passport case out of it or something like that. But buying that way, that is an element of our buying and it pays off.

Speaker 2:

Go ahead. I was just going to say to jump into this and back to the original costing conversation is because we do have graphic image here. We have so many small accessories that we're able to cut all the scrap leather out of, to save costs on everything and able to sell it that way, which is huge, so I could be cutting handbags.

Speaker 2:

We have a pen. We can make you know leather wrapped pens, luggage tags, pap sport cases, all these really small accessories with all the scraps. So we're using the entire skin which we have the luxury here because we have both brands.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, everything we could possibly cut. We cut these little patterns out to wrap pens, we send it over to Taiwan and they do it for us.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 3:

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Speaker 3:

So that is a really interesting question topic that you bring up about no wastage. Because number one you guys have tackled and I think are 10 steps ahead of everybody, because sustainability obviously is such a hot topic. Yada yada, leather isn't sustainable. You and I all know that it is because, especially if you're not wasting it, but this idea of no wastage and being so on top of that you're never concerned about. Okay, we're creating pen cases or pen caps. Are you ever worried, like it's great, we're not wasting this leather, but who's going to buy it? Or you know you'll always have a customer, because that's just as costly of creating a product that you don't know who you're going to sell it to.

Speaker 2:

Well, most of these products are already on the graphic image side because we have the two brands in house, so we have a whole graphic image line, as Tom was saying earlier. That's, you know, bookbinding. It started as bookbinding but we have the leather wrapped books, but we also have a tremendous amount of accessories. So all those leathers, no matter what, can be put into those products and we can kind of create, you know, new colors, but they're all already there. We have a separate graphic image website that we can. You know. I know, when I'm creating a handbag and I know the leathers and colors we could, I we buy. You know, sometimes similar colors to be like this could easily go into a graphic image product, so we're saving all the leather for it.

Speaker 3:

Was there any concern about that business? Especially with the rise of phones and you know, the watch business, the luxury watch business, has skyrocketed. Now who's wearing a watch? People who want to be seen wearing a watch because it means something Other than that no one is going to wear a watch, like it's status-related. Was that any concern with the evolution of tech?

Speaker 1:

Well again, where's the period Our business was founded on this product right here. I thought 20 years ago we would never sell another one at Venture.

Speaker 3:

And it's a leather diary just for anybody, still our number one product.

Speaker 1:

So thumb luck, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Tech is the. I think certain things with tech, like we don't really go near the phones and watches.

Speaker 1:

Never make another phone case.

Speaker 2:

And iPad cases. We stay away from all of that, you know, and. But the journals just resurfaced and diaries came out.

Speaker 1:

We were very fortunate that we have a very, very solid account base.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Which, in it, started out in the eighties with all the department stores, and then, and with the B Allman's and the IMAGNA's, all disappeared. It was left Saks, neiman Bergdorf, gryffini and a couple others, and they're still with us. So here's a reinvented product. Five years ago we made this in silver and black for Barney's. Wow, it's an inexpensive shopper. It's not a tote.

Speaker 3:

Okay, and that's made of leather.

Speaker 1:

This is actually a synthetic.

Speaker 3:

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

We don't do any synthetic on Gigi, but the purpose of this thing is literally like there's a bigger one here.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

And if you're welcoming up, maybe you take this to the grocery store. I don't know.

Speaker 3:

It's a synthetic shopping bag that says Bergdorf Goodman on it and I think that's very aspirational. I would love to use it, because my target bags I got to say I don't know what status they're bringing me.

Speaker 1:

I've got a lot of them, so go Baker One of our biggest accounts is the entire Williams-Sonoma group, and it's hard to feed them. They buy so much product, all right, so there are so many different homes for the different products that we make. You know, william Snowman's Pottery Barn, it's Mark and Graham. It's West Elm, it's William Snowman itself. So, having built this customer base for 45 years, it's not a matter of whether they're going to buy from us, but what they're going to buy from us.

Speaker 3:

That's a hard problem to have, isn't it? Yeah, buy from us, but what they're going to buy from us, that's a hard problem to have, isn't it that's? And do you attribute all of that to the fact that you have in-house production? Do you think that is a one of the feather in your caps that separates you from other brands, that because you're able to turn around and you can control the quality and they know that you're going to be on top of it one way or another? Do you think that gives you an edge as to why people keep coming back?

Speaker 1:

All of the above, and good product, great quality. I wish I could add to that the love of Made in the US. I don't know that that's as significant today as I wish it was. We don't actually advertise it that much. We're more proud to advertise our factory of American workers than to put Made in USA on any of the products. But again, I'd be buying again from China today if I could, but I can't.

Speaker 3:

Right, right, right right, alexia, if you don't mind, just talking about the evolution of handbags and how that's played in, and you said that you guys have been very fortunate to have these top three retailers. Is it a different buyer who's buying the diaries versus the handbags? Like, was that interesting that you still needed to evolve the product to?

Speaker 2:

keep up with that. It depends on the relationship and I guess some of the customers' faces do buy both brands, so that's to our advantage where we can correlate the colors in a little bit. So that helps out a lot and I think it's grown over time. But it's definitely shifted from before COVID to after COVID where now we have more of a drop ship available because we do have the space for it. We did a lot of small retailers beforehand, so some of the products weren't as aligned, I don't think, as they are today, because today we're able to drop ship here and it's Well, it's the first time you've used that word drop ship.

Speaker 1:

That drop shipping has become the cornerstone of our business.

Speaker 3:

Direct to DTC. Direct to consumer.

Speaker 1:

I mean, when you go on Neiman Marcus and you buy a bag, it comes directly from us.

Speaker 3:

So they're not actually buying the inventory. It's on their website and then it goes through you.

Speaker 1:

We finance the whole thing and then we wait to be paid.

Speaker 3:

So that's so interesting because I have worked with more designers, purely as a result of my relationship, through the Handbag Awards, with independent designers, so many of whom who have their products sold at online retail, and they've tried to get Macy's, walmart and so forth to buy their product outright so they would not have to hold their breath every time they're placing an inventory order and having it shipped over. But this D2C thing that none of these retailers want to own the product, so it becomes an issue. But I suppose you, owning and having control over that, you actually have an idea of what to buy and how much now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we also have. So we also have the graphic image side that helps us finance the GG side, as Thomas said earlier. You know what I mean. So, and because we are made here outside the door, I can control the quantity of production. So I'm also not mass producing, which helps me a lot to kind of navigate through the inventory and work through. You know bestsellers and what is selling on these websites and who's buying what bags, and I'm really able I have such a good idea now over the last couple of years being drop ship with these companies. You know what's really selling, what do I need to remake? What am I? If we're introducing a new bag, I can easily make a very small number and see how it does. And a lot of people don't have that capability of kind of shifting their inventory. And we do have that luxury here because of who we have out, like the number of people we have, which is smaller crew but they can turn out a lot of bags very quickly.

Speaker 1:

You can imagine the process. She just described why that works so well for drop ship because we don't have to say in March we're going to sell a thousand of these and a thousand of these and a thousand of these and hope when September comes we do it. We can make as we need and chase what's really really being successful. I don't know how deep this drop ship thing goes. I know that for our customers it's all really being successful. I actually have. I don't know how deep this drop ship thing goes. I know that for our customers it's all they really seem to want anymore. And I can't quite imagine trying to do this without having our own manufacturing because you have to make so many calls so far in advance.

Speaker 2:

And I think that the graphic image really helps out, whereas, like these smaller companies, all they have is a handbag line, so they're really relying on those bags to sell and we have the graphic image behind us backing us, which does very well for us, and not just, it also does very well on our own website. So, you know, we have that in our back pocket in order to like help out with being able to make these handbags and test different markets and stuff like that too.

Speaker 3:

So none of your retailers are buying inventory at this point. They just don't do that.

Speaker 1:

Not the big ones, not Saks. Neiman's buys a little bit but not in the handbags, but no it's. You know, as soon as you stop fighting the drop ship thing, you can try to make it work for you. Right, you pulled a couple of very smart things before. You said we're highly controlling the business. We know everything about it. When you ship 500 bags to a store and maybe they sell, maybe they don't sell, you have no idea if they will put it out properly, if they're even putting it all Now.

Speaker 1:

we've run the business and there's never a question. From season to season, servers have no incentive not to carry you as long as you're selling and we always know what's selling.

Speaker 2:

That's also the key. I have full control of which bags customers are buying. I monitor the websites and can see what they're buying, so I know what to remake and what not to If they're outright buying it. The control is gone what to remake and what not to If they're outright buying it.

Speaker 1:

The control's gone. In December of this past year we would drop shipping upwards of 1,200 to 1,300 packages a day. Wow, I know. And it's all the products combined Between two brands.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, all hands on deck, I suppose.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

It really is. So none of these retailers like how does it work if they want to carry it in store, like, what does that do? Or do you actually stay away from that because it's one less headache that you don't need to deal with?

Speaker 1:

We used to covet the independent store Right and we did okay with them, but there were payment issues. There was always the request for consignment. They were a challenge. They really, really were, and COVID really gave us a reset opportunity. The business around COVID a lot of like. I didn't even set up buying departments that were strictly online Right, and they were very much numbers crunchers Right. And then they made a decision where no, we need professional handbag buyers buying the handbags. And they came to me and they said this was like three years ago. They had to bring down their number of dropship vendors from the 30s down to six or under. And I said to the buyer after a year, how are you going to evaluate me? I haven't brought anything new in in a year. She goes. All I can tell you, tom, is you made the cut? Our business with them has soared ever since.

Speaker 3:

But let's just say that Neiman said we want to place an order to have your product in store as opposed to online. In store you can't drop ship, but that's not happening and you're okay with that because it's so much easier, because you can control everything.

Speaker 1:

I'd like it to happen, but I don't need it to happen and I'm not expecting it to happen.

Speaker 3:

Wow, and in terms of you know, it's so funny because I've known about Gigi New York probably for as long as the handbag brand has been in existence. Just because that's my job to track, I know that it hits a certain demographic and it's not for a very certain demographic. You've been very fortunate that the people who buy your product know what they're buying something well-made, good, leather, the whole thing. How have you guys been able to handle the marketing of it, because your customer isn't the one who's going to be on TikTok or on Instagram and watching reels, because that, I mean I could be totally incorrect. How have you handled that to ensure the constant buying over and over?

Speaker 1:

Well, we had a big lift very early on in Gigi. That maybe where you first learned about it. We were on the ground floor of the bloggers. We were doing bloggers with ladies today we can't get near, they're so huge, right, but they want anybody. Then, and there was a company, reward Style, which came before, like to Know it, and we were doing their fashion week holiday hospitality suites when they had six, six, uh, six employees, right, and these rock star bloggers would come in again with that time. They were nurses, they were moms, they were not right, you know, and they were called bloggers.

Speaker 1:

They weren't influencers not yet and that gave us an enormous lift early and and and. We could never have afforded the marketing that would have gained us the kind of visibility it did in those years. Right, we still use them today not the same way at all, though that's a whole other story but the marketing came as a. Again, we were lucky. We were very fortunate that the person in our tech area said we need to connect with these ladies, and we didn't even know what he was talking about. He was right.

Speaker 2:

We've also definitely seen a shift with social media, like in the last couple of years. So we did because of all these influencers, we reached a peak and then with COVID, it was like you know, looking at different things, so it started going down. But now, recently, I think social media is actually people are looking at different things, so it started going down. But now recently, I think social media is actually people are looking at social media again and really buying through Instagram and not necessarily TikTok for us, but we're definitely present on, you know, instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 1:

One of our challenges is that we appeal to the 25 to 65.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, do you know that? I mean within. It's funny you say that because with my students we call it narrow casting, where so many people say, oh, my customer is 25 to 65 and I and we have this deep dive thing. Absolutely not, it can't be. It's not who is your core, what's your sweet spot?

Speaker 2:

But in terms of your product, has been through so many iterations of lives I guess it is, and it depends on who you talk to in the company, because you definitely have some people who like to say it's an older demographic, not older, but you know not the 25, 35, 40. It's more like you know 50 to 65, 70. And so it shifts and but we are able to make handbags that last and are able to cover, you know, all demographics in a sense, because we have the factory here and we have a little, we have a store here, so you know you can have people come in and the little boutiques all over the country people can shop there and we do still have some of that business.

Speaker 1:

But we refer to it as the Hermes day bag, Day bag. They love the quality, they love the bag, but when they go out at night they want the European brand name.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. Do you rely now mostly on gifting for marketing? Like to make sure that it still gets into those hands.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, I think well, because we do have the graphic image brand behind us for gifting purposes. That helps. We kind of been trying to push that on our website in order to really show the quality of work that we can do and the work we can do. And now we are all produced here and if you want to buy, you know, that journal to go into your tote, you can Right.

Speaker 3:

Right, oh my God, this is I. We could totally talk for hours. This is I love. Well, you know it's.

Speaker 3:

There's something to be said for people who can control what they create and have. And you know, especially with the Gen Z customer. And you know, especially with the Gen Z customer, they are absolutely not the same as their predecessors. They shop differently, they think differently. They want to be heard, for better or for worse, of every thought that they have at any given moment.

Speaker 3:

I call them generation feelings purely because of that. But it's you know, you need to know how I'm feeling, and I think that's purely as a result of COVID, because these poor kids were stuck inside for so long that they weren't able to be normal and to be kids, and this is how it's evolved. But it's really exciting to see a brand that has been able between generationally, even between the two of you, that's still able to prevail purely because of what you've created in your own home per se. So I want to thank you guys both for doing this and being part of this podcast. I think this was really interesting. I mean, I know I'll want to listen to this again. How can we find you? Follow you? Learn more about Graphic Image slash Gigi New York.

Speaker 2:

You can go on our websites graphicimagecom, and then we have giginewyorkcom as a separate website for both, and then you can follow us also on Instagram under Gigi New York and Graphic Image as a separate account.

Speaker 3:

The fact that you guys were able to get graphic imagecom. I'm sure people tried to buy that off you. As it is, that's a. That's that's an early adopter right there. Thank you, guys so much for doing this. Thank you so much. Thank you, thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review and follow us on every single platform at handbag designer. Thanks so much. See you next time.

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Emily Blumenthal

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