South Brunswick woman puts talent into handbag designs
By Raviya IsmailSOUTH BRUNSWICK: Susy Chen is a self-proclaimed bag lady. Walking into Chen's home, one realizes the Dayton resident isn't really joking. But she's not that kind of bag lady.
Chen has been involved in textile designs for more than 20 years and handbag design and production for two years. She works out of her home office and studio in Dayton, where she has been living for eight years. From her home, she sends her designs to Manhattan, where they are manufactured.
Photo by Mark R. Sullivan
Susy Chen with some her creations inside the studio at her South Brunswick home, where she designs bags for production in New York.
Looking at shelves lining her living room, there are handbags of all shapes and sizes. There is a checkered bag with a zipper, a bag with a clasp decorated with a pastel-colored monkey and flowers, small purses of a variety of colors that hold just a few items and large "Mary Poppins" style bags that can hold almost anything. There is a bag for all tastes.
"Before I got involved in this, I only had two bags," said Chen, glancing at the stock of handbags organized in her living room. "In two years' time, I'm surrounded by hundreds of bags . . . My designs are catered to different kinds of clientele."
Chen arrived in the United States from Taiwan in 1971 and says she didn't really know what she wanted to do as a career. So she played around with majors, studying medical technology and accounting to zero in on what interested her. While working as a counselor at a camp for the blind, Chen started to pass the time doodling.
"That's when I started thinking I wanted to be an artist," she said. "I always wanted to marry an artist, but then I thought that I could just be an artist."
Chen enrolled in Lehman College in New York City and graduated with a degree in fine arts. Chen did not stop there and took as many design-related classes as she could from the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons School of Design, both in New York City.
After graduating, Chen searched for a job and contacted a friend involved in textile design. She began working in the field and eventually landed a job working at famed designer Diane von Furstenberg's company.
Chen said that working for von Furstenberg as a textile designer gave her a strong foundation in the field. She remembers designing cosmetic boxes and umbrellas among other items.
"Basically anything that needed surface design we did," said Chen. "That gives very good training."
Photo by Mark R. Sullivan
Susy Chen's designs include basic patterns. Once an employee of famed designer Diane von Furstenberg's company, Chen's bags are made from cotton, polyester and viscose with handles of leather, plastic, shell and bamboo, and they retail for $28 to $295.
After years of experience, Chen started her own business, aptly named Susy S. Chen Designs Inc. The company has been around for more than 20 years and initially designed textile prints and sent them to manufacturing companies, which then reproduced the prints into fabric tabletop items, bedding and a variety of other products. The manufacturers then sold the products to stores, including Fortunoff, Ethan Allen and Macy's.
Two years ago, Chen decided to expand her company and started designing and producing handbags.
"I originally started my business because I wanted to stay at home with my daughter," said Chen, who has a 7-year-old girl. "I only wanted to have a small boutique on the Internet when I started making handbags. But that particularly didn't take off because I didn't know much about e-commerce."
Her bags, which are made from cotton, polyester and viscose with handles of leather, plastic, shell and bamboo, retail for $28 to $295.
Chen decided to open up a show room in Manhattan to showcase her handbags and almost immediately got a sale's representative in the process. Now, Chen has showrooms in Atlanta and Kansas City, and sells the handbags out of her home and through her Web site -- www.SusyChen.com. Merricks, a shop in Princeton, also sells her products.
North Brunswick Paint and Hardware also sells her pillows.
Though Chen continues to design textiles for manufacturing companies, her next step is to design and manufacture the fabrics for her own line and then make them into items under her name. She hopes to begin this next step in her company within a year. But for now, Chen has her hands full with her handbags.
Chen's company is now busy selling her fall- and winter-collection handbags and is in the process of designing her spring and summer collection, which she will promote at upcoming winter trade shows.
And although Chen's business is booming, her employees insist that Chen's success will never go to her head.
"Susy's not the snobby type," said Jay Gutierrez, the company sale's representative.
"Not yet," Chen said with a laugh.