Purse Blog: Do you draw inspiration from vintage work?
Kara Ross: I love vintage! I collect vintage clothing and have quite a lot of pieces I wear a lot that are vintage. And actually tomorrow there is a big vintage show in New York and I am going to be there when the doors open. I like to wear it, I like to look at it, I think the attention to detail is amazing. I think the quality of workmanship is different. One of my favorite things to do is go to the flea market, go to the shows for inspiration.
Purse Blog: You said you travel a lot. What would you say is your favorite city to go back to or your favorite country to go back to for your designs? Perhaps, the most fascinating?
Kara Ross: I’ve been lucky. I’ve been in Turkey, Croatia and we are going to Greece this summer. So, I would say I like to experience new things; there’s not one place I’d say I need to keep going back to. I always love to come back to New York. I’d say if I wasn’t from here, I’d want to be.
Purse Blog: Were you born here?
Kara Ross: Outside of Philadelphia. But I always knew I would end up in New York. I went to Georgetown and then moved right here. But I like to travel a lot.
Purse Blog: I read on your website that you travel with your family when you were younger too?
Kara Ross: Yes, that’s what I mean, I was lucky. My parents liked to travel and they would take us with them. I’m the oldest of five and got a chance to go on a trip to take a safari in Africa; they brought my sister and I and left the other three at home but the other three got to go on a different trip. But now for the past 5 years, I have two daughters, age 13 and 15, so we’ve gone on a boat trip with my two daughters, my mom and dad, my husband and I. We try to go to a new place all the time. So, I love to travel, I love to take my kids; it’s a nice family thing to do, to experience to things and cultures together.
Purse Blog: It is a wonderful thing to be able to travel together!
Kara Ross: I think so too, and now my kids love to travel. When I was out in LA for the Oscars, my daughter took off Friday and flew out there so we spent the entire weekend together and then came back. It was so fun.
Purse Blog: What a fun weekend. It is something she is going to remember.
Kara Ross: Oh absolutely. And since some stores picked up the line out in London, I am planning a trip the week of June 3rd and I am going to take my younger daughter with me. So I am psyched about that.
Purse Blog: That will be really fun. Are either of your daughters really into fashion or do they have other interests?
Kara Ross: The little one actually was making a line of jewelery, she is 13 now and sold to Scoop and had her own website. She sold a few thousand dollars worth and the pieces were great looking. We would go to the flea market, she likes that kind of thing, and pick up some vintage charms, and then found some amazing vintage chain that you can’t find on the market anywhere. I had my jeweler put on some lockets as clasps and then we assembled all the charms. It was beautiful, we incorporated so many colors and some plastic beads. Maybe they sold for $25-$50 and she sold quite a lot. But then I had the website for her, it was really simple, just had some pictures on it. Then she was also written up in Teen Vogue, in Glamor and Elle Magazine. Anyways, I shutdown the website because she was getting frightened by the number of people who were emailing her.
Purse Blog: That totally makes sense. But is this something that you see her pursuing?
Kara Ross: Oh yes, she is really very creative. We were just at the flea market last weekend and she got all these really cool vintage buttons, then we went to M&J and got this elastic chord and that night we made a whole bunch of bracelets with the buttons and elastic cord. They were great looking.
Purse Blog: So there is something you can both share, your passion for design.
Kara Ross: It is great to hang out together and enjoy the bonding. And the older one, she is starting to like fashion. She is not as hands-on crafty as the other one, but she loves it. She’s the one who came with me to LA.
Purse Blog: It is great to hear that you do all this work with bags and jewelery and that your daughters might take similar interest.
Kara Ross: Honestly, the focus in my life is the kids and my husband. I really only had my first office outside of my home a year and a half ago. I wanted to work from home, so as they were growing up I was always there. It is only now as they are getting older and have their after school sports, their own time, that I can be out of the house. Plus, this all has really blossomed over the past year because I have had time to really focus on it where as before, when the kids were littler, I spent more time with them. And that made it easier to work with private clients than retailers because you could just always call them back. Having said that, I have great girls here in the office working with me which helps everything to grow.
