Local Company Turns Priceless Collectibles Into Handbags
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you have a favorite record album cover, you can now have it turned into a purse to carry with you.
As WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger reports, it all comes courtesy of Chicago-based Rediscover Handbags.
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"It's almost like blending a handbag with a collectible," said Milton "Butch" Harrison, a co-founder of the company.
It all started three or four years ago, when Harrison's business partner, Ray Ruggeri, started collecting old album covers, theater playbills, and book covers.
"We'd just go out and look for unusual covers, because we look at this as a piece of art, first, that we're turning into a handbag," Ruggeri said.
Doing everything by hand, Ruggeri and Harrison turn the items into one-of-a-kind handbags they sell through their company. Harrison says their bags are unique, but affordable, starting at $60 and up.
"Women love handbags, and will go to great lengths to find something that's truly one-of-a-kind, although one-of-a-kind things, when they're a particular designer, are really out of most people's price range," Harrison said. "We try to make things affordable for everybody."
Harrison came to Rediscover Handbags after several years of working in the food service industry and in education, according to the company Web site. He was inspired by his own love of music, particularly Broadway and rock 'n' roll.
Ruggeri has appeared onstage in a number of theatrical productions, and has also worked as a publicist and talent coordinator and a singer with the Four on the Floor a capella group, the Web site said. His passion for art and film led him to begin amassing the collectibles that he now turns into handbags.
Ruggeri says he and Harrison sell their handbags at art shows and through their Web site.
