Beauty in the bag
Handbag designer Nam Kim takes inspiration from high fashion, as well as tasty food
By Stacey Anderson
Published: August 7th, 2007 | 6:02pm
On her website, bag designer Nam Kim neatly separates her creations as "uptown" or "downtown." But at heart, she's all Brooklyn.
"I was walking down Bedford Avenue (Brooklyn's main hipster drag) and I saw a girl carrying one of my bags," recalls the longtime resident. "It looked like she'd really used it. I didn't say anything to her, but I was tempted to offer her a new one. It was great."
The moment was a small victory for Kim, who's modern and thoughtful bags follow a clear fashion philosophy: make functional, wearable art. The designer started a decade ago as an industrial design student at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she concentrated on furniture form.
"I started thinking about things as soft accessories, pieces that would complement the furniture component, like plastic on cotton canvas," says Kim, 33. "I imagine the contents of someone's bag and tried to integrate that wish in to the design."
Kim began sketching bags, and created her first three years ago. She saw business jump from friends' special requests to mass orders from tony New York boutiques, including the popular Minimarket and Nest. Her pieces are affordable and youthful, and all reflect her focus on functionality, with a few surprises thrown in. Her most popular piece, the Santa Fe bag, combines soft, colorful leather with Western-inspired cuts and straps. Her beautiful Ribbon Bag has a cleverly-formed shoulder strap from a decorative flourish. And her quirky Potsticker Bag, inspired by her mother's foldable Longchamp bag, pleats at the bottom to preserve the contents (and, of course, resembles a certain appetizer).
"My mother is one of the top influences in my life," says Kim. "She and my grandmother gave me lots of hand-me-downs, and I liked the challenge of coordinating and modifying something that meant a lot to me."
But not everything is easy to unify. Though her designs are garnering fast attention, Kim's discovered that the business end is another game entirely.
"At first, I thought I could predict what people would buy, but it doesn't work that way," she says. "I wasn't prepared to run a company. It made me realize that designers aren't necessarily good business people!"
Kim hopes to make her designs in more colors and sizes soon, as well as place them in more stores across the country. She cites Marni, Ro, and Mulberry as fashion and business inspirations, and is channeling her new love of yoga into an athletic tote (still in design mode). And though she has lots of big ideas, she'll get to them all in time.
"I'm inspired by so much, from the print of a swatch of fabric to the way a strap is added to a Dior dress," she says. "I want to do this for good."
View more at namkim.com
Issue #35
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