October 4, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Borders’ browsing leads to fabulous handbag designs
by PAT STOKES

Nakia Henry finished college with a degree in psychology and a minor in art history, but today she designs and handcrafts beautiful, sturdy handbags. (Photo by Pat Stokes)

It’s always fascinating to hear the career stories of multi-talented people whose quest for artistic or intellectual expression so often takes them on paths they may not have planned for.

The star of this week’s column, Nakia Henry, finished college with a degree in psychology, a minor in art history and an inner urge to do something creative, even though she didn’t draw or paint, yet here she is today a designer in the field of fashion.

Nakia’s a South Philly native whose college of choice was Temple. She started out using her psych training to enter the world of social work. She liked it and continues it at present, mainly with mental health cases, through a local organization. The creative drive, however, continued to speak to the current Roxborough resident, and she enrolled in a mail order course from the  New York School of Photography, which led to a successful, if short-lived, adventure with her own wedding photography business. One day, while browsing through Borders, looking  for ideas, something that would truly command her interest, she saw a Kate Spade display, not of handbags but of china. (Kate Spade does china? Where have I been?) The wheels started turning with questions about how you make such things and how you market them.

Enter that seemingly ubiquitous catalogue from the Mt.Airy Learning Tree, telling of a course in that: “How to start your own handbag and accessory business” with a plan  telling how to carry it out. She wasted no time. Hired a company, J and J Industries in Aberdeen, Maryland, to help work out the designs, walking through the various steps, coming out with three extremely good-looking, practical, casual yet sophisticated handbags.

All the handbags are made of beautiful soft cowhide, with canvas interiors. These bags, the first three in the collection,have names. A tall, flat bag you could love for life has handles  cut from the same piece of leather as the rest of the bag, not sewn on. “It’s called Marni.” The color, expresso, a dark rich brown with white  interior. One nice feature of the interior in all the bags is that the inner pockets (for your cell phone or other necessities) have expandable sides, making it much easier to reach in and take out what you need, and another innovation is that the good-looking logo is on the inside of the bag

A tall bag in butter-yellow or cream is called “Just Shopping.” It’s deep enough to allow for lots of purchases, with a soft khaki green interior. Also unusual is “The Walker,” a perfect square, in dark rich brown, lined in cream. It fits snugly on your shoulder with good wide straps that stay put. .

Nakia is working out the details of her new business and is hoping to launch the collection for winter. She has a nine-year-old son, Ethan, who attends Our Mother of Consolation School, so she’s no stranger to Chestnut Hill. We hope we’ll be seeing more of her and her fine-looking handbag collection soon. For more information or to order a handbag, email: caplet123@hotmail.com. See you on the Avenue.