Life & Style | Beauty & Fashion
The (croc) bag lady
First she conquered the fashion world, one handbag at a time. Now Nancy Gonzalez is changing her sole purpose.
- By Manjusha Radhakrishnan, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:35 November 24, 2008
- Image Credit: Supplied photo
- Many A-list celebrities have strutted Nancy Gonzalez's handbag creations on the red carpet.
Step aside, Manolo Blahnik — make way for the exotic handbags queen Nancy Gonzalez, who is poised to step into the world of shoe makers.
One might have missed out on this fashionscape-altering detail as Gonzalez, whose colourful croc creations have become synonymous with the ultimate in luxury handbags, unpretentiously slipped this little detail into the conversation while sipping on sweet Arabic coffee.
Unnervingly modest, this Columbian creative genius who has constructed more than 300 styles of timeless animal skin bags, looks down at her sky-high black peep toes and sums up her decision — "I love high heels.''
She says: "For sure, there will be a lot of high heels... It's all going to be very very high. But, I believe in giving my clients options, so there will be flats in my collection. There is going to be a lot of variety, too.
"I will be going about it in the same manner as with handbags, and it will be up to the customer to develop their own style while wearing it,'' Gonzalez says haltingly.
Her son, Santiago Barberi Gonzalez, president of Nancy Gonzalez Handbags and Accessories, confirms it with a sense of reflected pride.
He accompanied his mother to Dubai to launch their new collection at the Harvey Nichols store in the Mall of the Emirates. "The shoes will have similar attributes to the handbags,'' Barberi Gonzalez, says. In short, understated elegance would be one of the tools in Gonzalez's cobbler kit.
More than happy to remain on the background, Gonzalez is also one of the few iconic handbag designers who prefers to steer away from the "branded'' bag.
"To me, the greatest reward is the look on a woman's face when she buys or carries the bag on her arm. It's never about the designer,'' she says, tempting me to push my heavily designer-stamped bag under the table and out of her sight.
"I think my customers should ultimately decide how to wear it. That is one of the reasons why I avoid monograms or such tell-tale signs.''
But try as she might to avoid the spotlight, Gonzalez, who runs a 400-strong tight ship back home in Columbia, is constantly fielding calls and requests from celebrity stylists like Patricia Field. By the look of things, they simply cannot get enough of her croc clutches, weekenders, satchels or structured purses.
"We have a long-standing relationship with Pat. Some of her orders are very funny. I thought designing a dog leash that matched the bag that Samantha (the spunky character in the Sex And The City TV series and movie) carried was a great one. I enjoyed making the matching dog collar too.''
Another A-list celebrity who gets her talking is the iconic talk show host Oprah Winfrey. After some prodding from her son, Gonzalez says Winfrey is a celebrity who epitomises the qualities that she would ideally want in her customer. Though they have never made contact (apparently, Winfrey deals directly with luxury retail outlets like Neiman Marcus and wants to buy it at full retail price to avoid any obligations), Gonzalez has on many occasions catered to orders by the TV mogul.
"She (Winfrey) represents the strength of my collections. At one point, I remember making almost 200 clutches for her since she wanted to gift it to her friends for Christmas. Of course, the request came from Neiman Marcus. She doesn't want any gifts from us or anything. I like that about her,'' says Gonzalez.
Her sense of integrity doesn't end with appreciation for Winfrey's principles. Armed with a clutch of her own, Gonzalez says very often she feels that she is on a mission to bring about change and transfer her skills to the universe.
"Though I don't talk about it much, I feel I want to teach as many people the art of making handbags. It's something I just need to do. It's my gift to the universe.''
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