It's in the bags

When you meet Carlos Falchi, it's worth your while to get him to name-drop. His A-list clients over the three decades he's been designing include Miles Davis, Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley, Cher, Jacqueline Kennedy, Jessica Simpson and Cate Blanchett. In 1970, he toured with Tina Turner. He made a clutch for Barbra Streisand that appeared in "The Way We Were." Currently, his work can be seen on "Cashmere Mafia," "Lipstick Jungle" and the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie.

The Brazilian-born Falchi was not trained as a designer. After attending military school in Brazil, he came to the United States on vacation 40 years ago and stayed. In New York, Falchi worked at the famed Max's Kansas City, a restaurant/club that was an Andy Warhol hangout.

There, he wore a pair of hand-stitched patchwork pants he'd made. They caught the eye of an associate of Davis, who introduced Falchi to his friends.

Now, 30 years later, Falchi, who focuses primarily on handbags and leather accessories (wallets, planners and gloves), designs an eponymous collection and a lower-priced line for the Home Shopping Network (HSN) called Chi by Falchi.

How do you spot a Falchi bag? By its soft, deconstructed form, handmade construction and exotic skins. His best known bag is the Buffalo satchel (pictured above, left), which was declared by the trade publication Women's Wear Daily to be the most copied bag in the industry in 1980. All of his bags, excluding the HSN line, are produced in New York, and the company has become a family business -- his wife, nephew, cousin and others work on the 80-person staff.

Falchi will be in Minnesota for the eighth anniversary of high-end shoe and accessory store Pumpz & Co. He has been in Minnesota before, specifically to go to Dayton's and even to meet Bob Dylan's grandmother in Hibbing. (More name-dropping.)

Before his visit, we caught up with Falchi at his Manhattan studio last month. That day, Falchi was personally mixing a batch of dye for a series of "mushroom"-colored handbags and taking calls on his Bluetooth headset, all while answering questions with a slight Portuguese lilt in his English.

Q How did you learn how to mix dyes for skins?

A This was all done as experiment -- I've always loved playing with paint. I'm kind of a mad scientist. At the beginning of my career, skins were black, white, there wasn't much color. I wanted to change the colors. So I used to take vegetable dyes and I'd dye the skins in my bathtub.

Q So you didn't go to design school?

A Believe it or not -- I went to military school in Brazil. Don't hold that against me.

Q What happened?

A I went to work at the post office [in Brazil]. I designed a stamp for the government and I won a prize. It was so boring. It was something military. They liked it [the most] of all the contestants, and I realized I had a little bit of artistic ability.

Q What distinguishes one of your bags?

A Everything has to be handmade and have a handmade feel to it. I'm very proud that we have that handmade quality. They also last a long time. ... Some women tell me they've had their bags for 20 years.

Q How did you come up with the signature Buffalo satchel?

A I went to an art school in Japan, where I learned traditional Japanese arts. I'm always folding. When I got back, I was playing with leather and draping it. The Buffalo bag/satchel is the most simple. It has only two seams, and part of it is gathered. The simplicity of the bag is what I got the Coty Award [for design] for.

Q How did you learn how to sew?

A Everything was made by hand. I didn't know how to sew. Then [while working at Max's Kansas City] I met a man who played with Miles Davis. He asked me to make him a pair of pants. Then Miles Davis saw them. So I met Miles. Through Miles, I met Tina Turner and started making dresses for her.

Q Short dresses?

A Caveman dresses out of leather.

Q What about handbags?

A Sometimes I used to make these little bags for friends. They suggested, why don't you go to Bendels? It was the store. I went there and they loved everything I brought that day. That was the beginning of my career. I didn't really know how to make a handbag, so I broke the rule of making them.

Q What rule?

A Everything is constructed and hard, and I didn't do that. Everything I made was soft and beautiful and lightweight. Before you knew it, I introduced a completely new way of making bags.

Q Why handbags?

A The woman's relationship with the bag is very important. It's an extension of yourself and your home. You carry your most prized possessions with you. When you leave the house, you want to be sure you have security. It is a vessel.

Q What's in for spring in handbags?

A Beautiful blues, pinks, magentas and lilac and bones and even whites. There's a mélange of beautiful colors.

Sara Glassman is a Minneapolis-based freelance fashion writer.