Despite being a born and bred New Yorker with a serious fashion pedigree, it wasn’t until luxe handbag and shoe designer Fiona Kotur met a 90-year-old craftsman working in a mill in Hong Kong that she was inspired to launch her own collection.
Growing up in Manhattan, Kotur’s upbringing was infused with sartorial sophistication. Her sister, Alexandra, served as style director at both Vogue and Town & Country, and her mother is a painter, fashion illustrator and interior designer. Armed with this creative incubation, Kotur made the connection between the beautiful brocades she saw in the Hong Kong mill and the glamour they might lend a collection of clutches. Her first line featured flashes of exotic skins and an old Hollywood sensibility, along with the brocade discovered overseas. Released in 2004, the collection was immediately snapped up by Bergdorf Goodman, Brown’s and Harvey Nichols.
Since then, each collection has surpassed the previous in ingenuity and élan. Crystal minaudières, calf hair totes with snakeskin trim, and graphic art deco motifs in inlaid acrylic have all come out of Kotur’s prodigious and meticulous atelier. This season features geometric color blocks popping from glossy black clutches, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies swirling across a bag’s façade.
Kotur is also an advocate of fusing modern technique with traditional craftsmanship. To that end, one of her most innovative pieces is the #Getsmartbag, a clutch available in an array of designs, including a particularly gorgeous burgundy snakeskin. The clutches not only charge your iPhone, but also allow you to snap a photo or send a text on the sly—perfect for surreptitious texting during a never-ending meeting, or taking a (forbidden) snap of a star on the patio at the Chateau Marmont. The #Getsmartbag’s superior design was recognized with an Honorable Mention and Silver placement at the International Design Awards and was honored as a finalist in the New York Design Awards in 2013.
Following on the success of her bags, Kotur launched a shoe collection in 2014. The design and details on each pair of heels is exquisite, but particular standouts include a gold stiletto with leaves wrapping around the ankle—perfect for channeling your inner Titania—and black suede cutout booties topped off with a delicate bow.
Kotur has become a truly global brand, and wearing it serves as a password of sorts for true high fashionistas. Her designs are sold everywhere from Hong Kong to Dubai to New York in retailers like Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Harvey Nichols.
The brand has been a red carpet favorite since it launched, and the clutches have graced the long limbs of everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Anne Hathaway to Adele, who won her first Grammy while carrying Kotur (and styled by no less than Anna Wintour). Larger clutches are a perfect day-to-night option, and have appeared on the likes of Gossip Girl’s Serena van der Woodsen and (in special order red python) under Vogue editor André Leon Talley’s arm to get him through Fashion Week. Kotur’s blog profiles women who serve as Fiona’s muses—women like art collector Maryam Eisler, designer Tory Burch and makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury. She has collaborated with other muses, like designer Rachel Roy and J.Crew Creative Director Jenna Lyons on special collections.
But the most obvious embodiment of the brand’s refined, yet spirited ethos? Fiona herself, who graduated from Wellesley with a triple major in art history, studio art and English, clocked time as a designer in New York for the likes of Ralph Lauren, travels prodigiously, and now resides with her husband and four sons in—where else?—Hong Kong.
