“It’s funny—I see my bags a lot. I live on the F train, and for some reason, there are a lot of girls on the F train who wear them,” says Rachel Nasvik, whose polished, substantial purses have a crazy cult following. “One time, at an airport in Chicago, a lady came up to me when we were waiting in line for the bathroom and said, ‘Oh my gosh, you made my bag!’ I guess she had seen my picture or something. It was so random.”

The Brooklyn-based designer never set out to create a handbag line, but growing up in the Chicago suburbs, she had a knack for making clothing. “My mom sewed my entire life, and she showed me how patterns worked when I was really young. I started cutting them up and changing them to what I wanted. She said, ‘No, that’s not how you do it,’ and I said, ‘I like it better this way,’” she recalls.

Eventually, Rachel made her way to FIT, and, after a denim wallet she created for kicks found its way into Lucky, she decided to dive into the accessories pool—which required thinking about design in a new way. “With a bag, you’re making something that’s supposed to fit everyone, and it’s not such a seasonal thing,” she says. “It has to stand out, but it has to be built to last.” Her pieces achieve this sort of impression-making durability, and so has Rachel’s career: She’s been at it since 2003, picking up new, soon-to-be-loyal fans at every turn.

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