by Beth Luberecki
Chris Birchfield doesn’t have any problem with being called a bag lady. In fact, it’s a term she willingly applies to herself, and with good reason. She’s been designing totes and handbags since 1968, and today she sells her wares in two Southwest Florida stores along with a shop in Maine.
The former Mainer first realized the power of a good bag as a child. During her family’s weekend sailing trips, “everything went on in bags and came off in bags,” she recalls. “So that’s really what started me, good old L.L. Bean bags. But I was brash enough in those days to say, ‘L.L. Bean bags are great, but I think I can do better colors than those.’ So that was really the start of it.”
When Birchfield began, she was a one-woman operation, handling the design and manufacture of all her bags. Two years later, she decided to make a change. “After sewing thirty-six bags for a customer and forgetting to put the zipper head in, I decided it was time to hire some help, which I did,” she says. “It was the toughest business decision I ever made.”
But she never looked back, and over the years her Maine-based company grew to sixty-two employees. She took advantage of every opportunity she could along the way, like Congress’s 1972 passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
“When the Equal Rights Amendment passed, I knew then that I would be able to borrow money from the bank without having a husband’s signature,” she says. “So I went and sat on the bank doorstep the morning after the amendment passed. Then when they opened the door and said, ‘What do you want?’, I said, ‘I want a loan, and you have to loan it to me now.’ The bank official said, ‘I knew this happened, but I don’t know what it’s all about,’ and I said, ‘I’ll tell you what it’s all about.’ So he lent me $1,000, which was a lot of money in those days.”
As her company grew, it not only sold its bags in retail stores but also took on custom work for clients like Merrill Lynch and designed and manufactured products for names like Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, and Martha Stewart. In 1994, Birchfield was named the Small Business Administration’s businessperson of the year for the state of Maine, and a photo of Birchfield with President Bill Clinton hangs proudly behind the cash register at her Englewood store. “I was one of, I think, only three women,” she says. “We have really come a long way. Women have come so far.”
Almost four years ago, Birchfield sold the manufacturing portion of her business but kept the retail operations. That includes a store in Cornish, Maine; her Basix at the Bag Lady shop in Punta Gorda; and her Basix on Dearborn location in Englewood. At each, shoppers can find Birchfield’s designs, which include sturdy tote bags, feminine purses, and toiletry bags done up in floral, striped, or geometric fabrics that are colorful, hip, and modern. Think Jonathan Adler meets Marimekko with a little Lilly Pulitzer thrown in.
“I like bags because they fit everybody,” says Birchfield. “I have lost and gained weight all my life, but I don’t have to think about that when I do bags. And everybody carries a bag, whether it’s a plastic bag from Publix or a $25,000 designer bag. You can wear a black dress or a black suit or a black pair of pants and have one item that really says you, and the bag is it. It’s a very personal thing that women buy.”
And men. Birchfield is an equal opportunity bag maker, and she designs men’s styles as well as women’s. For her masculine products, she tends to turn to a manufacturer in Punta Gorda. Otherwise, the bags are made in Maine. And now that her non-compete agreement with her former manufacturing company is up, Birchfield plans on getting back into the manufacturing game herself. “I have a group of women who used to sew for me who will be sewing again for me, and they will make all of our bags for next year,” she says.
When it comes to her designs, which all generally sell for under $100, Birchfield likes to keep it simple. “I stick pretty much to the basic styles, because it’s the fabric that I really enjoy, not so much the intricacies of the bag,” she says. “There are bags out there with fourteen pockets and so forth, and I don’t do that. We do a fairly simple tote with a zipper and without, with shoulder straps and without shoulder straps. And when a woman comes in and takes a look it’s what she sees. I’ve never had anybody say, ‘I’m not going to buy this because it doesn’t have some pockets.’ It’s a visceral thing; if they like the fabric then you’re pretty much three-quarters of the way there.”
Birchfield used to design her own fabrics, but these days she relies on the creations of others. Vendors she’s had a long working relationship with send her samples, which she may ask to be recolored. If she sees an interesting fabric on a chair or other piece of furniture, she’ll track the source and obtain it for herself.
And once she’s done with a fabric, she’s done. “I do limited editions now, so that you’re not going to see [your bag] over and over again,” she says. “When they’re gone, they’re gone. And that’s what makes it fun. I’m coming up with things all the time. I’ve been know to lay in bed, and my husband’s very used to the fact that the light goes on and the notebook is taken out and some little something is scratched on there so I remember in the morning.”
That same sense of individuality is carried over into the other products sold at her stores, whether it’s pine-tree-scented soap from Maine or brightly colored Adirondack chairs made from recycled milk bottles. “I don’t buy a lot of products just out of a catalog and plunk them here,” Birchfield says. “It’s very important to me that we have things that aren’t seen in other stores. And I try to make it all work here. I guess, in a way, we’re an old-fashioned general store with new ideas.”
Basix at the Bag Lady, 124 Cross Street, Punta Gorda, 941-575-1661; Basix on Dearborn, 449 West Dearborn Street, Englewood, 941-474-7111
Beth Luberecki is a Venice, Florida–based freelance writer and an editor for Times of the Islands and RSW Living.