Move Over, Kate Spade; Young East Hampton graduate wins design award

By Taylor K. Vecsey

Judith Lieber, Kate Spade, Monica Valentine Russo. The last could be the next household name in designer accessories.

Last month Ms. Russo, a member of East Hampton High School's class of 1999, received a $1,000 award from Kate Spade for outstanding achievement and creativity in handbag design. She graduated less than two weeks later from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan with an associate's degree in applied science.

The prize was awarded based on "design, execution, and produceability," said Ellen Goldstein, Ms. Russo's adviser at F.I.T.

"She was completely surprised," said Donna Russo, who attended a reception sponsored by Seventeen magazine, despite her daughter's insistence that she was not going to win anything.

An accessories design major, Ms. Russo focuses on bags, everything from clutches with wristlets to oversized totes, as well as belts. She also designs shoes with heels from stilettos to flats.

She completed a two-year program at F.I.T. in only one school year. She had "no idea how to sew" before attending F.I.T., she said, but quickly learned how to make her own designs, even the shoes, using plastic model feet. Now she is constantly borrowing tools from her father, Joseph Russo, a plumber. "His hammer is always missing!" said the resourceful designer.

"My designs are really fun, colorful, and made with a lot of vintage material," Ms. Russo explained. "I can always go to a garage sale and make a good buy."

In addition to being written up in the June 9 issue of Women's Wear Daily for winning the Kate Spade award, Ms. Russo's vintage-inspired Mimosa collection was displayed on the Jumbotron, a big-screen television at Macy's on 34th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. F.I.T. and Macy's paired up to showcase accessory and men's wear by six of 50 accessories design students.

Mimosa was inspired by a vintage orange leather armchair, with antique metal studs, that came from a yard sale, Ms. Russo explained. With wooden soles, studs, and orange lambskin insoles, the shoes feature a striped blue, orange, and gold ribbon upper, or strap, also sporting studs.

The purse in this collection, which clinched the Kate Spade award, is a "cylinder-shaped box-bag," as Ms. Russo put it. Set against vintage fabrics, a watch is sewn onto the closure, which magnetically snaps the bag shut. The watch was donated by her former employer, Steph's Stuff in East Hampton.

Ms. Russo has many other collections drawn out on paper. One, named after her favorite beach, Georgica, and designed before they became the in fashion for the summer, revolves around polka dots.

"All of my collections are inspired from something," she said, whether polka-dotted bikinis or vintage chairs.

Kate Spade, Kenneth Cole, and Fawns Brothers have offered her positions in researching trends or in introductory design, but "my dream is to own my own business," said Ms. Russo. She hesitates to sign a contract as a trends researcher because she would be prohibited from making her own designs. "It's artistically frustrating," she said.

At 22, Ms. Russo has two other associate degrees in design: one in window display from Eurocentres Acadamia Italia in Florence and one in graphic design from Western Connecticut State University.

Living on Atlantic Street in East Hampton with her parents until she makes a career decision, Ms. Russo keeps busy creating. "My room doesn't even look like a bedroom," she said, considering it has an industrial sewing machine, drawing designs, and material thrown all about. Crezana Design, a textile company on Mariner Drive in Southampton, has been giving her leftover scraps.

Ms. Russo will sell her designs on the East End throughout the summer. Over the July 4 weekend, she will share a booth with her friend, Nikki Aarons, who reconstructs vintage jewelry, at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum's antiques show.

In honor of her mother, a metastatic breast cancer patient who recently came out of remission, Ms. Russo has created a line featuring the breast cancer ribbon.

"She is my number-one inspiration. No matter how much I am going through, she is going through so much more." Profits from zippered clutch makeup cases, straw bags, and floral beach bags, as well as others, will be donated to a breast cancer charity.