Spencer & Rutherford

An Australian handbag line with worldwide appeal, Spencer & Rutherford began almost by accident. It all started with a bag Kim Michaelides, the brand's creative director, designed and created for a photo shoot for an advertising client. After fielding numerous requests for more bags, Kim launched Spencer & Rutherford and has never looked back.

Since those humble beginnings, Spencer & Rutherford bags have become something of a collector’s item. “We had a customer a few years ago, when we had the bushfires all around Victoria, and she had to clear out her house because the fires were coming. She had only five minutes to take what she could and all she took were her photo albums and her Spencer and Rutherford bag. She ended up losing everything, but she was so thankful that she saved her Spencer & Rutherford bag,” Kim says.

Kim spoke to me surrounded by her colorful creations from her chic showroom in the heart of bohemian Melbourne.

By Elizabeth Re, International Correspondent

BagTrends: How was Spencer and Rutherford born?
Kim: It was a collaboration between myself, my sister and my husband Chris in early 1999. My sister and I were the designers and Chris financed the business. We unveiled the first collection at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in 1999 and got lots of orders. We then got a factory and started making the bags.

BT: Tell be about your background. Have you always been a creative person?
Kim: My mum was a fashion designer and my dad was an architect so I was always drawing and painting. I actually wanted to be a painter. Howard Artley was my art teacher and he once said to me, “your life has been too good, you’re too happy.” Artists need a good breadth of emotion to actually understand what they’re producing. I definitely agree with him. He said you need to do graphic design, so I did and then went on to advertising and that’s how I met Chris. We started up an agency, which we ran successfully for nearly 10 years.

BT: Tell me about the bag that started it all.
Kim: We found these seriously vintage frames from the 1920s - we had about 15 of them. We just created this bag that hung off the frame. It was black silk, with stitching down one side and it had a ribbon handle. We stuck some beads on it, and some pretty colored flowers. It was very different to everything else that was in bags at the time. It took off, so we made more and more.

BT: Who is the Spencer and Rutherford bagista?
Kim: Our customer is 25 to 55; we have a really broad range. Our bags now are not just a traditional shabby-chic look, although we do still try to blend a little bit of that in because our older customer loves that. Some of them are very fashionable women. Or it might be a lady, who traditionally has never been complemented on an outfit, and then they wear a Spencer and Rutherford and somebody runs across the street and grabs them and says, “Oh my god, you look amazing, where did you get your bag?”

BT: What made you believe in your ability to make Spencer and Rutherford work?
Kim: I’ve always loved making things, even as a child. Because my mother was a fashion designer, I always had access to different fabrics, but only ever small pieces, so for me putting together different fabrics was part of my growing up. Understanding fabrics was like learning to cook an egg, really. The bags are really a unique blend between my natural ability with fashion and fabrics and then graphic design.

BT: When and how did you take Spencer and Rutherford international?
Kim: We went international from the very beginning. When we showed our first collection at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in 1999, there were a lot of international buyers and we were lucky enough to be picked up. We worked out that there was this show in Paris called Premier Class, so I rang them late one night and said we’ve got these bags, we think they’re really different, they’re from Australia. We sent her one, which was like sending a diamond ring because we had only made about forty. She rang us three days later and said, “we’ve just received your parcel and we think it’s very French, you have to come we’ve made room for you”. So that was a really big thing because there we’re lots of international buyers there.

BT: Which celebrities can be seen toting Spencer & Rutherford?
Kim: Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette and Princess Mary of Denmark. Tyra Banks also recently came into our Sydney store and bought our entire luggage collection.

BT: Is Spencer & Rutherford reflective of your personal style?
Kim: Oh, yeah. I have an ideas book and for every season I start to create a look and a feel of what excites me. So it will be tear sheets from magazines, postcards, pictures, labels, memories, photos and little things I collect. Then I start to look at an idea or a theme behind it. For example Autumn/Winter ‘07 was called High Tea at the Imperial Palace, which was inspired by an Asian theme. The latest collection is An Ocean of Dreams.

BT: Who inspires you?
Kim: I think Karl Lagerfeld is amazing and I always look to John Galliano’s Dior collections; his haute couture collections are such an inspiration for the S&R Limited collection. Marc Jacobs is amazing.

BT: What are your “In the Bag” essentials?
Kim: A Purdey wallet, a Violet sunglasses case, my phone, always a camera – that’s my most essential essential – I take photographs of people in the street, shop windows, sometimes it might just be the sun setting and the color of the sky. I also always carry a notebook, perfume, lipstick, but no other make-up because I can’t be bothered with it.

BT: Take me through a day in the life of Kim Michaelides.
Kim: Answer emails, work on my current range, I also manage production. Most of the week I eat lunch in, I have a short day, I finish at 3:30pm. Then I pick the kids up from school and do homework with the kids, make dinner and get the kids ready for bed. I often do some designing once the kids are in bed.

BT: What do you love most about your job?
Kim: Color. I love working with color, I always have. I also love drawing.

BT: What’s on the horizon for Spencer & Rutherford?
Kim: A men’s collection and we would like to do a leather luggage collection – think Bridget Jones’ mini breaks.