Sassy satchels Local entrepreneur lets you design your own bag

“I’ve always been crafty,” Megan Avery, the founder and sole designer of the M. Avery Designs, said last Thursday over a veggie sandwich and Snapple at Hoboken Gourmet. “And I realized that handbags were really popular. So I started making them for friends. And then friends of friends were asking me to make them, so I started a web site.”

At mavery.com, customers can design their own handbags by choosing from a variety of styles, fabrics and adornments. The handbags, which run from $27 to $45, are all handmade to order by Megan Avery herself. M. Avery-designed handbags can also be found at Hoboken shops like Down to Earth and Hand-Made.

Megan Avery grew up in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. She moved to Hoboken after she graduated from Ithaca University with a degree in advertising. After a brief stint as a media planner at Ogilvy & Mather, Avery landed a job at bolt.com, a web site targeted at teens. Unfortunately, she quickly became a dot-com casualty when the company laid off 40 employees last February.

“It was the best thing that every happened to me,” she said, with genuine optimism.

Pert and perky with a pleasant smile and easy demeanor, Avery, 25, is a self-described handbag addict. “You can never have too many purses,” said Avery, the owner of over 30 handbags.

After her abrupt departure from bolt.com, Avery, who had already begun designing handbags, decided to pursue her business full time.

When visiting mavery.com, customers can select from over 25 handbag styles: there are boxy bags, A-shaped bags and over-the-shoulder tote bags. The styles are all named after family and friends. For instance, over lunch last Thursday, Avery modeled the Linda, a bamboo-handled A-shaped purse named after an aunt; the Sandra, a boxier version of the Linda named after another aunt; and the Alice, a fabric-handled tote bag named after yet another aunt.

For her summer line, Avery usually uses cotton fabrics. But in the winter she offers alternative weaves like velvet and denim. She’s even dabbled in pleather.

Using a sewing machine, it takes Avery, who works at home, approximately one hour to make a bag. She usually makes between 20 and 30 bags a week. After only three months, she said her business is doing “surprisingly well.”

“I don’t see myself owning a big company,” she said, when asked about her future plans. “But I would like to have small studio, and maybe a few people helping me. And one day I’d like to own my own boutique and sell all handmade stuff” – including, of course, original M. Avery handbags.

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