HANDBAG INDUSTRY EXPERT
"The Handbag Fairy Godmother"
Emily Blumenthal is the founder of Handbag Designer 101, Independent Handbag Designer Awards, and author of Handbag Designer 101: Everything You Need to Know About Designing, Making, and Marketing Handbags (sales worldwide over 50K copies). As featured in the New York Times Style Section, Emily is known as the “Handbag Fairy Godmother” who brings unknown brands to the forefront. She is a trend/source expert and understands the insatiable appetite for emerging and undiscovered designers.
Emily is also a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she teaches entrepreneurship and was the first female hire for its Business Department. She has also taught “Fashion Marketing” at Parsons The New School for Design and “Fashion PR” at the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising. Emily has given lectures on “How to Launch Your Handbag Line” New York Learning Annex to sold-out crowds, is the go-to for financial institutions on the handbag market overall and has been consulting for handbag brands big and small for over fifteen years.
Her dedication has prompted collaborations between emerging talent and brands like Swarovski, Timberland, Kate Spade, Kenneth Cole, FUJIFILM, Guess, Nine West, and Nasty Gal as well as Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, and Macy’s. She has been featured multiple times in InStyle magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, the Associated Press, CBS’s The Early Show, Today, Fox Business News, the EFE, The New York Times, Family Circle, Forbes.com, and many other media outlets. In September 2015, she launched the Handbag Designer 101 program on the shopping channel, EVINE Live, which reaches 88 million homes nationwide. That interest led to a nationwide program that will launch later this year with a ‘build-a-bag’ craft program called “Handbag Designer 101” as well as a handbag designer reality competition now in development.
Kidpreneurship has become a passion project for Blumenthal, not only as a mother of three but also as an entrepreneur who wants to empower children to be their own best version of themselves. Because there was no go-to spot for kids, young adults and parents alike to see what is possible when a someone really puts their mind to truly making a difference, she created an Instagram account, “Savvy Suzanna” to keep track of successful and inspiring kidpreneurs and is now the go-to discover young talent as well as "CharmstersNYC"as a multi-ethnic girl squad to show teamwork knows no boundaries.