They Make Great Pets

Normally, it would seem unheard of for a fashion designer to proclaim, "It's what's on the inside that counts," but not if that designer is Carlos Falchi. The handbag designer prides himself in putting out a collection of bags, season after season, that boasts more internal quality than external bells and whistles.

If fancy hardware, lots of logos and other unnecessary purse properties tend to win you over, consider for a moment Falchi's reasoning. "A bag is a very personal thing. It literally carries an extension of your life," he said during a personal appearance at Bags, Belts and Baubles inside Wynn Las Vegas.

To him, a woman's bag should be more than a five-pound decoration burdening one of her shoulders. After all, it carries the possessions she couldn't get by without. Her finances, keys to her home and automobile, modes of communication, grooming products and more will all get stored in what Falchi considers far more than just a bag.

"Having your bag next to you is like having a pet next to you," he said. "There's a relationship between a woman and her bag and it's very important."

Clearly the man takes his job very seriously. He can sing about the beauty of handbag design and the significance a woman's purse plays in her life all day long, but it's the work that truly reflects his sincerity.

On this Saturday afternoon at Bags, Belts and Baubles women toting status bags buzz about the boutique scouting out their next "pet."

Prominently displayed at the front of Baubles, Carlos Falchi's designs catch the discerning attention of nearly every woman who enters the store. They garner everything from a long stare to close examination. But when the potential buyers go so far as to put one over their shoulders and find a mirror, the Falchi bag is all but purchased.

Cindy Tabor, manager of Bags, Belts and Baubles, is used to the fanfare. "I have seven bags on hold this morning alone," she said of Falchi's collection. "(Customers) just like the general package. The quality of skins are amazing and the designs are too."

Falchi started his career in show business, designing costumes in the '60s for the likes of Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley, Miles Davis and Tina Turner. After reaching his peak there, he decided it was time to give up his backstage pass. During a sales pitch to a Henri Bendel buyer, Falchi reached into the self-crafted satchel he had draped over his neck to pull out his apparel designs when the buyer stopped him short and began observing the satchel the same way women do his handbags today. She fell in love on the spot and soon enough Henri Bendel shoppers were doing the same.

He once referred to his place in the handbag and accessories world as "accidental" but now it seems a little more like fate. These days he designs bags hoping to inspire the same reaction the Bendel buyer had. "I want you to fall in love with the bag. Not the name, not what's on the bag, but the bag," he said. "I want you to go, 'Oh! ... I have to have it!"