Photograph courtesy of CBS
F&W Style luxury handbag founder Alexandria Alli had no expectations when she attended the Atlanta edition of the popular Black Excellence Brunch back in February. Like the other guests, she was there to celebrate the new CBS soap opera Beyond the Gates—the first ever anchored by a Black family on network television in the genre’s nearly 80-year history. And though the soap is set in Washington D.C., it’s filmed right here in Atlanta.
Because that celebration was a week before Beyond the Gates premiered, when Alli met executive producer Sheila Ducksworth there, she thought at best she could place her bags in some of the episodes. She never imagined she would soon be working with the show’s Emmy-winning costume designer Jeresa Featherstone to help power the show’s popular storyline of cousins Chelsea Hamilton (RhonniRose Mantilla) and Kat Richardson (Colby Muhammad) launching their own luxury handbag line, dubbed ChelseaKat. And Alli certainly never expected to appear on the show with those bags.
“I’d already made samples of the bags, and they already picked what they wanted, and then they just called me one day and said, ‘What would you think about playing yourself on the show?’” Alli explains to Atlanta of her September appearance which she celebrated with the BronzeLens Film Festival, Spelman, and Beyond the Gates days before.
“I just thought they would just have me there on the side, and I’d be nodding, but they had lines for me. So I started learning my lines. I went on set, and they did the whole hair, makeup, wardrobe, all the things, and we got to shoot with the actresses. So it was amazing,” she says.
Photograph courtesy of CBS
Reception for the ChelseaKat Dream bag, which currently comes in six colors, has also been amazing. Four of the colors are currently sold out. The bags are crafted from vegan leather but are designed to look like denim with two-tone paneling, with one color more prominent and the other more subdued. Color schemes include red and pink, gray and charcoal, pink and green, as well as the singular colors of pumpkin, blue, and green.
Alli, who was born in Houston but raised in Nigeria until her family relocated to Atlanta when she was about 14, is grateful to live out her designing dreams here.
“I’m so thankful that this is where we moved to because it seems like I’ve grown with Atlanta,” beams the University of West Georgia and Collinsville High School grad. “Atlanta has grown in fashion and music and movies, and my brand has grown with Atlanta.”
Alli credits her passion and innovation as a fashion designer to her mother. “Growing up in Nigeria, my mom had a design studio where she would make contemporary clothing out of African fabric,” she recalls. “In a time where people were sewing more traditional clothes, she would have suits and pants and shorts and skirts.”
The joy she witnessed also made a huge impression. “One thing I saw from her is just how women were just so happy leaving her studio. They would come there for clothes, but then they would be there kicking it and talking about other things,” she continues. “The way she used color and the way she had fun with what she was doing, I knew I wanted to do something like that. She’s one of my biggest inspirations.”
The former banker first dipped her toe into the fashion pool 15 years ago before going full-time eight years ago. She credits the support she’s received here as the main catalyst behind her continued success.
“I feel in bigger cities, you can get lost, but here in this city, you can be who you want to be and people support it, and especially as a Black-owned brand, just the support from all women, all races,” she says.
“Atlanta was where I first started with Bloomingdale’s, and now we’re in several stores. I don’t think that would have happened if somebody at Bloomingdale’s here in Atlanta didn’t see the value in us,” she adds.
As a wife and mother of two, however, she admits that maintaining work-life balance is not easy. “I’m not going to lie, it’s not balanced. It’s more of, I’ve learned to juggle and just pay attention to where I am at that moment,” she says. “Right now is very busy for me. We’re doing ChelseaKat. The business is booming so I am spending more time [on that]. But I have such a great support system with my mom, with my dad, my husband, and that has really helped me so I can really focus on this.”
In addition to a new ChelseaKat bag dropping next month, F&W Style just released Big Kandi, a slightly bigger version of their popular croc-embossed leather signature, touting it as “the bold evolution of our classic Kandi bag.”
Photograph by Elle Wood Photography
Even with all this success, Alli is not limiting her ambitions. “The goal is to become a household name, and we’re starting out with handbags,” she says. “At some point, I do want to go to shoes and clothing, but I’m a big believer in being the best you can in one area first.”
And Beyond the Gates, she says, is giving her a huge boost towards that goal. Still Alli is very clear from where the wind beneath her wings in business emanates. “We’re here in a show that is being shot right here in Atlanta, and they’re using an Atlanta designer,” she says. “So Atlanta has been everything. I don’t think my journey would have been the same if I wasn’t here.”
Advertisement
