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Talk about ALEX Original Handbags

 

A super cool article about ALEX – Original handbags: on ZEITjUNG.de

Judy, the author of Frankfurt Fashion got a part time job with an online magazine/newspaper, and her first article in a series on ‘Designers from Frankfurt’ was about ALEX – Original Handbags.  I’m feeling rather flattered.  If you click on the article you can see the full story, otherwise below is the translation for those of you who prefer English

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Part 1: Handbags
Alex Original Handbags

It seems that all creative people are currently moving to Berlin. Graphic artists, designers, writers and musicians. And in Frankfurt we only meet bankers, lawyers and corporate consultants. Though away from the this financial circus, a small disigner community has evolved in recent years. In the first part of the series ‘Designers from Frankfurt’ I present Alex Dinan-Mitchell. A young lady that designs handbags.

Alex is originally from Canada. Who up until a year ago lived in cold and wet England, she’s now in Frankfurt.  In her small studio in the leafy suburb of Sachsenhausen she designs, creates and sews handbags.  The idea to design and make bags herself came from seeing everyone wearing the same thing. She wanted bags that were unique and original. But they still needed to be practical. Therefor her models always have practical details such as pockets for mobiles.

The basic models consist of Messenger Bags, Shoulder Bags, Round Handbags, Evening Bags and a variety of small purses and cosmetic bags.  Since she had learned how to sew with her grandmother as a child, even created all her dolls clothes, it wasn’t too difficult for her to start producing her ideas.

Alex buys all her materials herself. The search for suitable materials is not always easy. She is picky about quality, colour and uniqueness. Her search takes her to department stores, to second hand shops, and even to flea markets. Some materials are even inherited from friends and family.

The bags are colourful and decorated with satin ribbon, buttons and small applications. The important factor being that each bag is unique.  Ideally she would keep them all herself.

Her customers appreciate her attention to detail. Many happily visit her quiet and bright studio to order something custom made, for example a recent special request was to be worn at a wedding. Alex was particularly pleased with this, that her creation was not only going to be used on a daily basis but for such a special occasion.

You can presently buy her bags at ‘designe, kleine!’ in Brückenstasse, or directly from Alex in her workshop. For anyone who doesn’t live in Frankfurt, you can visit her website:
www.alex-original-handbags.co.uk
and for those of you who want to know more about the sympathetic designer why not go to her Blog:
www.alexoriginalhandbags.wordpress.com

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I am very please with her article and although I don’t want to undermine her, not all her facts are correct. For example I’ve lived all over the place!  I only spent the last two years before moving here in the UK, and it was in Cardiff which is in Wales.  But I guess I shouldn’t be so pedantic.

New Make Up Bags

Here are several of the newly created Make Up Bags that I mentioned last week, these can now be found on My Dawanda Shop. Why not go and have brows, these would make great little Christmas presents

Here are also a few pictures to wet your appetite. 

  

Feeling under the weather

 

 

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Yesturday I was feeling really under the weather which is why I didn’t write.  No, I wasn’t feeling sick, I was just feeling a little depressed and rather near tears.

The fair last weekend didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  Don’t get me wrong it was a beautiful place, there were lots of visitors too but the average age must have been 60!  So, ok, I might be exagerating, but not much!!!!  That age groupe is not simply not interested in my bags.  They are not my taget customer either.  So I just sat there and smiled and listened to their stories about what they sew and how a few years back everything was much cheaper. To no surprise I didn’t sell much.  It felt like a waste of time.  Especially as it’s over an hour drive from Frankfurt.  At some fairs in the past I haven’t sold much but have given loads of cards out so I’ve felt that although the sales weren’t necessarliy god, it was great publicity, but this fair wasn’t even that. So I don’t think that I shall participate again next year.  I also hope that the other fairs that I have booked from now until Christmas will be better.  I do think so, most are Fashion Fairs rather than Arts & Craft fairs, and there my bags are much more appreicated. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures, now lets never mention it again!

       

New Make Up Bags

I must admit that I am very proud of myself.  It might sounds a little arrogant but on Monday I set out to make 40 new make up bags this week; it’s now almost noon on Friday and I’ve managed it!  Very, very pleased with myself.  Doing them in a chain rather than one at a time was much better and quicker. Now I just have to decide which will go to Karlsruhe along with the small purses I made last week, which will go onto my Dawanda shop and which will accompany me to all the fairs.  My first fair of the season is actually tomorrow so it’s good that I finished early as I still have to pack and prepare for that.

   

I guess it’s hard to see but if there are any you like and can’t come to see me at any fairs or don’t want to miss out, then simply contact me!

Work in progress

Well, I’m getting there slowly but surely. Last week I was really pleased with myself as I had set out to produce 60 small purses in preparation for the Christmas Markets and different fairs that I hope to participate in the coming weeks and months.  And I actually managed it!  For this week the plan is 40 make up bags.  They take much longer to produce hence 40 and not 60. 

I’m going towards it in a very different way though.  Normally I make a bag from start to finish then move on to the next one.  This time I’m trying something different and I hope that it saves time and effort in the long run.  So far I have done the first step for all 40 bags, it’s actually taken three days to get to this point.  But tomorrow when I start with the next step I think (or rather hope) that it will go much quicker. As I said before, the plan is to finish all of these this week as at the weekend I’ll be at a fair and next week I need to start on the messenger bags.  Ahhhhh, the stress of Christmas! And it’s still 2 months away!!!   

New Small Purses

As promised on Friday I have added several new Small Purses to my Dawanda shop and to my website. 
It was so hard to choose which to add to the Dawanda Shop, here are some examples:

    

Though I still need to figure out how to add them as ‘Add ons’ to other products on my site.  That was the whole reason whey I had picked some of these in the first place, as they matched some of the larger ones. I want to offer the matching small purse at a cheaper price when you buy it with the larger bag, for example with a matching messenger bag or shoulder bag.  But it doesn’t seem to be working.  I mean it’s pretty straight forward when you first look at it but I can’t upload more than one picture and it’s minuscule.  Also you can’t actually open up the information…  Anyway I guess it’s hard to understand without seeing it. So I’ll stop complaining but I will let you know when it’s working so that you can pick loads of pretty bags with matching purses

A very productive week

I’m very, very pleased with my week.  I have been very, very productive, as you can see for yourself in the many, many small purses.  By many I mean: 60!  Ok, I’m exaggerating but I did make over 50 to add to the few I still had to make a grand total of 60, that’s not counting the ones on my site.

It might sound like a lot, but 20 are going down to Karlsruhe Christmas Market, some are going to be on my Dawanda shop, some more will come to the site as ‘Ad ons’ so cheaper than usual when matched to a large bag. The rest will go with me to the different fairs and hopefully all of them will find new owners or be bought as nice little Christmas presents.

 Give me a couple of days and then you will be able to see many in greater detail!

                   

Online Shops

At the beginning of the year I got very excited when I created a shop page as part of ‘Shopwindoz’; ‘online shops for niche products’.  This was/is meant to be a little like Dawanda or Etsy but orientated towards designer products rather than handmade ones. Soon after creating my shop I sold a couple of bags so I thought it was the best next thing. But since then my opinion changed, I am now officially F***** off at it! And I am not one to swear! So this is a serious comment or accusation.

At one point I personally sold some of the bags at a fashion fair rather than through the online shop, so I tried to remove these from the online shop pages…  Well that proved to be impossible.  So I simply set them to ‘0′ so they were neither ’sold’ nor ‘available’.  It wasn’t the best solution but it wasn’t too bad either.

But a little while later I thought that I was wasting a potentially good selling platform out of my laziness.  So I set out to give it a total face lift and change ALL of the bags.  I wanted them all to have the same colour scheme to make the shop look cool and eye catching.  Well, I still couldn’t remove any of the products.  I got annoyed, and as I do when I get annoyed or don’t know how to do something, I just kind of lost interest and left the page there as is was, without any changes…  With a couple of bags… 

After a few more months I though, you know what this might not be the best publicity for me. If people are viewing this stagnant shop over and over again this will leave them with a very bad impression.  And anyways I had just invested into a brand new, more efficient website (My Site!).  So after long consideration decided to delete my whole shop.  It wasn’t like I was getting many visits anyways.  Well, deleting the shop proved to be just as impossible as removing products.  So I wrote to them and asked; how to I delete my shop?  Well, I have now written 5 times; by filling in the ‘feedback’ form, by writing directly, in English and in German.  To this day I have not received an answer.  Any answer!

After fiddling around with it again I did find how to take it off-line.  Which is where it still is. But I would still prefer to delete it completely.  Shopwindoz still have my company and bank details.   I really don’t think that it’s right to treat people like this.  Had they answered the first time or been more helpful I might have changed my mind and given it a second chance. But it’s too late for that now.  I have removed all links from my blog to their site and will certainly not recommend them to anyone who is thinking of selling online.

Have you had a shop with them?

What kind of experiences have you had with them?

Would you recommend any other online shops?

As promised

I finally have some pictures to share with you of the children’s clothes shop I had done work for back in July and August. If you read my blog back then, you will know that I had been contracted to cover/upholster over a hundredpoles.  The idea was to make them look more child-friendly by making them more cuddly and soft, but also make them match the colour scheme and theme of the shop. If you missed those entries, you can follow the links here: ‘No more stripes!  I had also made some cute little lamp shades for the counter: ‘Custom Made’.

Here are a few pictures of the still empty but almost finished shop when I went to install all of the covers:

     

And a few pictures of the completed shop: 

   

It looks great doesn’t it?  Susanne, the architect and owner of ‘designe, kleine!’, came up with a great design with a real natural and organic feel.  She also had some lovely ideas like the little stars on the ceiling, the birds on the walls, the lighting behind the hills and the slide for the kids, so they don’t get bored. It doesn’t feel like you’re in mall at all but rather it feels like a cute little boutique.