Entrepreneur finds new life in handbag manufacturing startup

Gretchen Bauer is an unlikely novice manufacturing entrepreneur.

She spent 20 years in interior design in suburban Philadelphia, working in some of the Main Line’s toniest mansions. “It was fabulous,” she says. “It was a great business. I never had to advertise.”

Bauer moved to Sarasota in 2012. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t have a job. She instead sought to design a big life change. She soon got involved with the Sarasota charity event-planning scene.