What Do Accessory Designers Do

I am an Accessory Designer. I have a degree in Accessory Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. For my company, Jypsea Leathergoods, I design leather handbags, home decor, and jewelry.

Designing and sourcing materials for the line is maybe 20% of my job as a designer. Most of my time is spent manufacturing, shipping, and the other logistics of running a business. From time to time, I might work on custom orders for clients.

My typical day

As an independent accessory designer who is self-employed my day-to-day looks different from when I worked designing for corporate brands.

Now, I start work around 10am and that means checking on any orders that may come in from the various outlets that sell my line ie: my website, Etsy, Chairish.com, Joindough.com, and soon Wayfair’s website will sell my line.

I process the orders. Sometimes I have the product on my shelves ready to go and other times I don’t and have to make the product from scratch in which case I’ll make a half dozen to increase the inventory. Sewing could take several hours, if not a couple of days.

Then I label the products, pack and stack the boxes to be picked up by my shipping carrier.

On a day when I have no sewing, and orders have been packed for shipping, I can focus on designing new work. This could mean sketching or paging through fashion/home decor magazines or going to the museum for inspiration. The next step, after I’m inspired, is to visit Fabric Row in Philadelphia to see what new fabrics I will include in my future collection.

It can take a few weeks to completely flesh out the next collection then to start cutting materials and sewing up the samples and that’s another reason why my days vary because I can be anywhere in that process on any given day. But processing orders is a pretty standard part of my day.

Pros

I get to take things I imagine and bring them to fruition and have complete strangers wear them or buy them for their homes. It’s still the coolest thing in the world to me!

I make a living working from the comfort of my home studio and therefore I get to be home with my children. I have full autonomy over my life, which is great.

Cons

So much of the job is not in designing but in sales, marketing, and business management when you’re self-employed. If you try to ignore that part and just focus on designing, you’ll have products and no audience to sell them to.

Being a business of one, I also work every single day late nights and early mornings to meet deadlines. It’s hard to turn it off.