Be&D

A handbag label competes on three things: silhouette, material and identity. The silhouette has to read at a glance across a store floor; the materials and hardware have to justify a designer price every day the bag is carried; and the identity — what makes this bag recognisably one maker's work — has to survive changing seasons. Be&D built its identity on Laotian design, drawing on the textile and decorative traditions of Laos, where co-founder Be Inthavong was born, and applying them to contemporary handbag shapes. Cultural design of that kind gives a young label something advertising cannot buy: a visual language no competitor can copy without copying the founder's own heritage.

The channel matched the product. Upscale department stores are where designer accessories are compared side by side, and placement in many of them, in the US and abroad, put Be&D in the consideration set for the contemporary bag customer from 2004 onward. For an accessories company, wholesale placement of that kind is both distribution and credential: each store's accessories buyer acts as a filter, and passing many filters quickly is how a two-person label becomes an international one. The handbag category rewards that speed because bags are not sized like clothing — one design can be sold to every customer a store serves, in every market, without a fit range — so a successful shape scales faster than any garment.

Be&D also illustrates why accessories so often lead a fashion business. A handbag is carried daily and seen constantly, so it advertises its maker more efficiently than clothing; it is bought as a gift, replaced on fashion cycles shorter than a coat's, and collected by customers who own several. A label that starts in bags starts where the visibility and the repeat purchase are.