Jun 1, 2007

Purse Parties Carry Panache; Customers design their own made-to-order bagsBy Laurie LucasPE.com

It’s only 10 a.m. on a recent Monday, but it’s party time at bag lady Christina Cabrera’s Orangecrest home.Six women, all homemakers, sip coffee and chat as they peruse a panoply of purses, portfolios and pocketbooks and sift through 45 swatches laid out in the living room.

The guests itch to mix and match fabrics, choose linings, ribbon trims, handles, hardware, inside pockets, straps and monograms to customize a bag that exudes “purse-onality.”

Cabrera shows them samples ranging from hot pink dotted diaper bags to black-and-white giraffe printed garment bags. The hostess is a rep for B’s Purses, a Louisville company started in 2004 by three young mothers hoping to cash in on the No. 1 accessory.

“You can go anywhere to find a brown handbag,” says Cabrera, a 33-year-old mother of three girls. “But this is an opportunity for women to be creative, to design something to get a little bit of attention.”

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