Built To Last

When the founders of MZ Wallace set out to create a long-lasting handbag, the fashion industry wouldn’t listen. But two decades later, their design is iconic.

- Stephanie Schomer

Back in 1999, longtime acquaintances Lucy Wallace Eustice and Monica Zwirner got to talking at a New York farmers’ market. Both were young mothers with fast-growing careers in fashion, and, as it turned out, both had been looking for the same chic, ultra-durable accessory. “There wasn’t a great American nylon handbag, something that worked for me, someone who traveled and worked and had small children,” Zwirner says. So the duo decided to make it themselves, and created the now-booming brand MZ Wallace. Here’s how they got started.

1/ Embrace the naysayers.

The women walked around New York’s garment district, knocking on suppliers’ doors and looking for partners. “We told a leather vendor that we wanted to use his expensive Italian leather on nylon bags, and he was like, ‘Why?’” Wallace Eustice says. “He told us that it was a waste of money.” She took that as a positive: It meant, she says, “that we were doing something different.”

2/ Think outside the box.