Slim Vin

Wow. Love these.

Big bags are a necessity in my business. As a journalist, I'm constantly lugging around a mishmash of computer cords, recording devices, notebooks and miscellany.... Pens, tape, thumb drives, chapsticks, you name it.

All this makes the purses and totes from the Brooklyn-based company Skinny Vinny seem like a fashionable investment. Founder Vincent Lai is a 2006 graduate of Carnegie Mellon. He spent time at a design consultancy in Soho before launching his own line.

"I wanted to combine my product design education with the soft goods and pattern-making knowledge I gained growing up in a garment factory," he said.

Lai, who named the company after a teasing nickname, makes the product samples himself. They are then reproduced at a small factory in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Hooray for handbags!