Linsey Stiles spends a lot of time in her Dallas garage. Even though there’s a new-car leather smell, she’s not working on cars.
Stiles, 33, makes custom handbags under the label Stilestar Designs. The finished-out two-car garage contains bins of fine leather pieces, screen-printing setups and workbenches where she sketches her designs.
“I’ve just always had a love for working with leather,” she says. “I like creative ideas and the special details. I like quality materials and the use of color.”
Stiles designs handbags, wallets, cold-weather goods and other gifts. She sells her line, as well as some vintage goods, in an online boutique called ShopMoonShadow.com.
Her purses are made with buttery-soft leathers and details such as fringe or artful studding. The pebble-grain texture of the leathers makes you want to touch them. She says they also age well.
“The pebble grain holds oils and get softer and softer with wear,” she says.
After earning a fashion design and merchandising degree from the University of North Texas in 2004, Stiles traveled back and forth to Hong Kong for five years designing handbags and other accessories for Fossil.
Now she designs and makes her own line, start to finish. She also designs other items that are made in factories.
We flip through piles of paper sketches of handbags. I touch thick stacks of leather samples that she can order in any color, and marvel over the intricate details of a freshly screen-printed leather design that she is working on.
One of the sketches is a custom design for a client who wants a bag with a slot for a breast pump.
“She will have it manufactured going from my artwork at a factory of her choice,” Stiles says.
Another bag is designed to open efficiently and store a photographer’s gear. The customer wanted high style, easy access, a safe spot for an extra lens and pockets for memory cards.
Another client wanted a bag with extra-long fringe, and Stiles was thrilled to experiment. The commission turned out so well that she decided to make more fringed bags, creating the fringe from leather in various colors and textures.
“I got crazy on fringe bags,” she says.
Michaels Stores and other companies, such as Provo Craft & Novelty, maker of the Cricut scrapbooking line, have hired Stiles to create projects using their products.
She also sells vintage clothing. She pulls inspiration from the old styles to blend with her more modern ideas.
Stiles is interested in all facets of fashion art and wants to handle marketing her designs online.
“A lot of people like to focus on just one thing,” she says. “I like to do it all.”
Stiles sometimes models her work — she’s represented by the Campbell Agency in Dallas — and also does makeup for some projects and for film production.
Stiles comes by this creativity naturally. Her mother, a veterinarian in Bryan-College Station, makes custom yarns from sheep’s wool.
“She is so crafty,” Stiles says. “She’s an illustrator and can sew anything. We call each other all of the time and are always brainstorming on our next projects.”
Such creative thinking serves her well.
“I love thinking about the customer and trying to provide exactly what they are looking for,” she says. “And really trying to understand what they are excited about.”
Clare Miers is a Dallas freelance writer.
See Linsey Stiles’ work online
Facebook: Search for shopmoonshadow
Find her Vintage Clothing on Etsy: VintageStiles
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