DeVaughn and Lerma Edwards are the proud owners of Laurese NY, a brand new, up and coming designer handbag company. The company was initially formed in March 2004 as a way to start a college fund for their baby daughter and company’s namesake, Faith Laurese.
DeVaughn Edwards worked on forming the company in his spare time from his “real job” as a Federal Investigator, learning HTML to create the company’s website and marketing the products. Lerma Edwards, an established designer for a globally-recognized furniture company, creates the bag designs.
As the company progressed, the pair noticed that the better known brands often charged thousands of dollars for less durable and easily stained cotton or canvas handbags. To set themselves apart from the rest of the designer handbag names, the Edwards pair decided that they would use only high quality leathers and would include 24k gold gilded metal components on their luxury bags. They also decided to include a bottle of leather conditioner.
Initial launch of the brand was only a few months after the conception of the idea and was financed with money from their tax return. After receiving positive feedback from family and friends, the bags also received some local media attention. Word-of-mouth also played a major part in the success of the handbags after a family friend showed the bags around the Dallas, TX area. Soon orders were coming to their internet site from numerous cities and from some high profile customers. In December 2004, the company was selected to participate in the Billboard Music Awards and the CBS special “A Home For the Holidays” by providing handbags to participating celebrities. A Hollywood Who’s Who list have now received Laurese NY handbags including Diana Ross, Beyonce Knowles and Paris Hilton.
All has not been rosy, however. As with most start-up companies, Murphy’s Law has been the norm. Trials have included a computer hard drive crash that deleted the customer list, a run-in with a huge fashion label over a comparison between the Laurese NY prices and theirs, and the ever-present capital investment shortage. The Edwards pair market their products solely on word-of-mouth and with the assistance of wonderful people through blogs and other internet communications. Growing pains were also part of the company’s signature logo consisting of a goldplated “Laurese NY” plate with an embedded Swarovski crystal. The embedded crystal began with the idea to embed a pink pearl which would be replaced with a different type of jewel with each season’s bag. However, the bag just could not support a pearl – which is also sensitive to chemicals and heat.
Although both are proud of the initial handbag designs, they are even more excited about the future. They have traveled to study the designs and manufacturing techniques in France and Italy and are committed to having the most spectacular handbag designs.
The Laurese NY Daiquiri bag is currently seen as part of the prize in the E! Fashion Police Contest: http://www.eonline.com/Sponsored/FashionPolice/041215.html
No comments:
Post a Comment