The Belt Bag in leather is very hip!  And this is no exaggeration.  Please welcome the newest handbag edition to the Clutch Bags family.  It is the rebirth of the 1980’s fanny pak and it is hot!!! Continue reading
Tree Lighting Rockefeller Center
Ginnifer Goodwin, Miley Cyrus, Reese Witherspoon, Selena Gomez and Ashley Tisdale all styling the perfect Slouchy Beanie that compliments all Clutch Bags
 If you are one of the many women trying to keep it clutch with accessories this fall but don’t know exactly how to go about it, I’ve got the perfect accessories to spruce up your wardrobe so you can bring your style to the streets.  I’ve picked out my favorite fall items to share with with you all! And of course, they all compliment each other, delivering you the perfect Clutch Bags New York look!  Continue reading
“I love accessories. I’m a girl. I love handbags.” -Petra Ecclestone
Summertime in NYC
It’s official: Summer is finally in bloom! But the temperature isn’t the only thing that’s up! For the passed week and a half I have found myself running around, all over NYC. Though my errands take me to different parts of the city, at different times of day, I have been noticing some consistent trends.
The  most consistent trend I have noticed is the use of the Scout Bag from Clutch Bags. I have seen this spacious satchel on the shoulders of women uptown, downtown, east and west. Because this handbag seemed so popular on the streets of NYC, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So I decided to bring my Clutch Bags NY leather satchel along with me on one of my day of errands. I packed it with the usual suspects: IPod, keys, phone, and wallet. And I was off. Continue reading
This week Clutch Bags NY was lucky enough to spend some time talking with April Dinwoodie. Not only is she a Clutch NY client, she is also a woman with more than one career. April is a successful publicity director and the cofounder of a nonprofit organization called Fostering Change for Children.
Keep reading to find out what motivates April to keep moving forward!
April at home with her Clutch NY mail bag
Why do you like living in NYC? New York is full of diversity. Overall, it has a great vibe. I grew up in Rhode Island which is pretty much just one note. Whereas New York is many notes. So I love it for that reason. What inspires you? Young people who have had tremendous hurdles in life, yet they manage to get themselves out of bed everyday and put a smile on their face. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than that. What gives you hope? More or less the same thing. Seeing someone breakthrough. When a person has something really challenging in front of them, watching them overcome it makes me feel hopeful. Continue reading
Clutch Bags NY was lucky enough this week to spend some time talking with Maria De Los Angeles, a Clutch NY client who happens to be a very successful and inspirational NYC hairstylist.
Keep reading to find out how Maria went from a conformable Catholic schoolgirl to a strong and resilient businesswoman!
What does your profession mean to you? I’m a hairstylist and I see it as an art form. The hair is a blank canvas and the face is the structure, so I blend them together. But I don’t just do hair, I care about the people I work with. I care about those people out there. They’re my people. How did you know this was the career path  for you? I knew that I loved structure, I loved clothes, art, and I loved nature. What was your first job? My career started in the fashion business. I worked for Norma Kamali for eight years, from 1981 to about 1989-ish. And I started as an intern. I worked for free and then she hired me.
Where did you grow up? I lived in the South Bronx. I was born in 1963, so during that time it was a very working-class-neighborhood, very Catholic school, very uniform. What were you like when you were younger? I grew up in a family of five. And it’s interesting, because I grew up tending to be the peacemaker in the family and a little more submissive. You know, you want to be a good kid. Who was your first mentor? Continue reading
 Is 
it just me or is time flying by? It seems like just yesterday I was packing my weekend bag for Winter vacation, wrapping Christmas presents, and drafting my New Year’s resolutions, and now, all of a sudden it’s the sixty-fourth day of 2013! If you, like me, are not totally sure about where all of that time went, use this post as a guideline as to what is memorable about March.
Transitioning from February to March doesn’t only mark a change of climactic and fashion seasons, but also a change of focus. Now, ladies, before you start worrying about updating your wardrobe with this Spring’s latest must-haves, remember that every Clutch Bag is versatile 
enough to withstand the trend of any season!
While the month of February celebrated the beauty of humanity’s products–such as fashion, film, and music– through events like The Grammy’s and Fashion Week, March celebrates the beauty of humanity itself. Through a bundle of holidays that commemorate doctors, saints, and women, this month stresses humanity’s most admirable qualities:
Laura DotoloÂ
917.743.7152
President Clutch Bags New York LLC
Scout Bag in rich, supple almost edible Chocolate Brown Leather
For some reason, I am being drawn to colors. Maybe it is better to say, I am attracted to accessories that all fall under the same color spectrum. OK, how about accessories that live harmoniously together? I give up. It is really about accessories that MATCH! Yes, I believe that it is. There is something about accessories and outfits, that when a few key pieces work together or match, the whole ensemble just feels very right. It feels very zen.
Now, as a side note, the fashion trend is going very forward with patterns, patterns everywhere! Even on your underwear!!! Snooping around Soho yesterday, I noticed quite a few boutiques sporting the Spring ’13 trends…and those trends were full of “print” energy, so be ready for some crazy visuals crossing your eye path in the near future.
I digress now, so let’s get back to where I was heading. So, on the flip side of this busy pattern trend, I am feeling very harmonious with colors and items that come from the same color family. I am not saying that materials, accessories and ideas all mixed up isn’t great to look at and so very apropos for some occassions. I am just saying that the blend of the same color lightly accented or sprinkled on the clothed body can really bring the onlooker’s eye to focus on a “stunning” final result.
Eye Candy Accessories in Chocolate
This week I have been obsessed by the color chocolate. Maybe it has something to do with the holiday passing and all the nice chocolate candy I consumed. I am not quite sure. Maybe it is the thought of that candy combined with the feel of the chocolate tumbled leather that I make my handbags with. I think that was the original attraction that drew me into that leather in the beginning, and why I chose to produce my handbags with that supple, smooth and very classically, handsome color. It truly comes down to the richness of the leather. And how, with that color and feel, can one not almost taste my handbags. Delicious!
It seems that once a woman gets a Clutch Bags NY bag in her hands, she is sold and cannot put it down. If you feel the need to touch it, we offer a 14 day return policy. Order a bag, receive it, touch it and then decide whether you would like to keep it forever.
Yummy! Envelope Clutch in Chocolate
              Let me begin by wishing everyone out there a very happy, healthy and refreshing New Year from Clutch Bags NY!
What a great opportunity we have every year on this day to transcend old habits into new ones. I like to say, “Out with the old habits and in with the new vows!” Or, as George Williams Curtis says, “The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.” That is some very nice winter imagery for us, isn’t it?
So, doesn’t that make us reflect on what our new vows should be? I know that I have been thinking not only about the habits I need to break, but also about the vows I need to begin implementing. January 1st is the perfect time for the birth of new habits.
So, where do we begin with breaking some habits? Lets start with the definition so we can figure out what it is we need to change. Wikipedia says: “Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioral patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways.”
So, habits are habitual and hard to break. Possibly, we can break them by making some promises to ourselves with some new vows. Webster defines a vow as such: “a solemn promise or assertion; specifically : one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition. Okay, we have it. Vows are a bound to an act. Let’s start with that and bind ourselves to some acts.
What acts would we like to bind to ourselves with in this new year of 2013? After giving all of this some thought, I came up with the following list.
Laura Dotolo’s Vows for Clutch Bags NY in 2013:
1-Build Clutch Bags NY into a stronger brand for people to believe in
2-Write more blogs so people can read more about the workings of Clutch Bags NY
3-Get the message out to the world that Clutch Bags NY are made right here in NYC…and America is a pretty cool place to have things made.
4-Tweet inspirational mentions from Clutch Bags NY daily
5-Always strive to be a better person 😉
So, my January 1st has begun in a productive way with some positive vows. As Jim Ryun has been quoted saying, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Here’s wishing that all of you are able to make a vow that becomes a very good habit for 2013!!!!
Happy New Year 2013!
kisses,
Laura
