Purse strings

Purse strings

Anita Spector turned a

personal interest in making purses into a business that could vault her to fashion

stardom. Her son, Jeffery Spector, helped her turn her creativity into business reality.

Anita and Jeffery Spector are packing their bags and heading to New York City.

The Cape Coral fashion designer and her son were accepted to show their one-of-a-kind purses at the New York Fashion Week show in January, the ultimate business confab of the industry. Last year, the show attracted 900 vendors and 17,000 industry executives from all over the world.

Anita Spector creates every purse by hand and gives each work of art a name. Recent creations include Caylee Rose, Quinita and Watermelon. These purses are mostly for special occasions and prices range from $175 to $1,500 each. Spector is working on a signature purse with a two-carat diamond that will be priced between $15,000 and $20,000.

Anita Spector has been making purses and bags for 25 years, but it's only when Jeffery urged her to expand her efforts that she decided to make it a full-time business last year. The Spectors own a general-contracting firm in Cape Coral and Anita's purses until recently were a personal endeavor. She made her first purse years ago because she needed a red bag to go with an evening gown.

But the real estate downturn gave them a reason to make a big push into the fashion world, forming Atina Je'Belle, a play on Anita's name spelled backwards. Jeffery now works with her full time.

They know there's a market for her bags because even strangers ask her where she purchased a bag she's holding. "Even on the airplane people stop me," she says. A bag encrusted with jewels sewn in the form of skull and crossbones is a big draw, she says. Anita signs each of her creations and notes how many hours she's worked on each one.

The Spectors have been planning for the New York Fashion Week for a year. They stopped selling purses a year ago so they could build up an inventory of about 300 bags. Her purses are made of all sorts of exotic materials, from ostrich feathers to German amber and Tahitian pearls, which Anita hand-sews into colorful material. Jeffery does quality control, inspecting every bag at least four times.

In all, the Spectors say they're spending more than $18,000 to travel to New York and man a ten-foot display. They're giving away 15 bags to the editors of the top fashion magazines in the hopes that they'll earn a positive review. "I'm dying to get in Oprah's magazine and Oprah's show," Anita Spector says.

With no sales since December 2007, the Spectors are betting big on Fashion Week. They'll have to sell 300 bags to break even on their $88,000 investment in the business so far. If they hit it big, the Spectors have a plan to hire other family members, including one of Anita's daughters who inherited her mother's touch. They're building a two-story studio at their vacation home in the Carolinas and hired Cocoa Beach-based marketing expert Tony Todaro.

Anita also has plans for other creations, from hats to shawls and jackets. Shoes, belts and other leather goods are another fertile area. "My head is just bursting with ideas," she says. "I have rooms of things."

-Jean Gruss