Urban Junket’s target customer is less concerned with logos than finding one perfect bag that will work for the office, running errands, shuttling kids and socializing. In fact, Urban Junket made a conscious decision not to put the brand name on the exterior of its laptop bags. There’s more room for high-quality bags with an individual point of view. The designer bag market today is moving away from its focus on name brands. “Women want options, and they want to turn it into a personal statement,” Arnold says. The straps are adjustable, and the bags also mix colors and textures. Gabs, for example, makes bags that convert from short to long and slim to formed with a few snaps. Their commitment to blending fashion and function extends to the lines they represent. “But then, a lot of women are buying bags for $2,000.” The handbags Urban Junket represents retail for $120 to $600. “And the price point is really good, especially if you look at the quality.” “They’ve got a really good eye,” says Jada Breuer, owner of Grand Avenue’s Karma, which stocks two Urban Junket lines. stores, including several stylish Twin Cities boutiques like Ensemble, StyledLife and Gallery 360 in Minneapolis and Karma in St. They currently distribute 10 handbag lines, as well as jewelry and accessories from Italy, Turkey and Germany.
As they were exploring Italian tanneries to produce their own bags, they came across a number of striking handbag lines that weren’t available in the U.S. Meanwhile, Dyer and Arnold are keeping busy. The bags will retail somewhere in the neighborhood of $500, a price point Dyer and Arnold call “entry level luxury.” The first Urban Junket collection will be unveiled at accessories shows in the spring and should hit stores by fall. One design has a pocket on the front that detaches and becomes a clutch for after work. The bags, which provide ample padding for a computer and plenty of pockets for everything else, will come in five colors and feature hardware details.
Urban Junket will make its debut soon with three laptop bag styles, all in keeping with the oversized, slouchy look of the moment. They formed a company called Urban Junket one year ago and recently moved operations from Arnold’s Eagan home to a downtown Minneapolis office.
So, Dyer and Arnold quit their corporate jobs and headed to Italy to create a luxurious yet practical fine leather laptop bag that a sophisticated professional would feel good about toting. “You’ve got to give up fashion for function or vice versa.
“They’re still either masculine or pink,” Dyer says. The two combed the market and discovered, much like the women in the focus groups, that “fashion” and “computer bag” were a contradiction in terms. Then, they steered the discussion to a more pressing technological concern: Where could you find a fashionable laptop computer bag?īest Buy marketing executives Tracy Arnold and Tracy Dyer were surprised and inspired. The point of the focus groups was to determine whether a woman would feel safe with a member of the Best Buy Geek Squad coming into her home for computer repairs.