by Elyce Arons
First published 2025
Elyce Arons opens her memoir in a University of Kansas dorm room where she first encounters Katy Brosnahan, a polo shirt wearing girl from Missouri. Neither imagines they will become best friends, let alone business partners who transform the accessories industry. Their story unfolds through college transfers and frat parties inspired by The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then follows them to New York City in the 1990s. Living in cramped, roach infested Hell's Kitchen apartments, they work day jobs while spending nights creating a handbag line. The friends navigate romantic relationships, financial struggles, and the challenges facing women entrepreneurs as they develop the elegant, simple designs that will make them globally famous. Arons captures both the glitzy excitement and gritty reality of downtown New York at the century's turn. At its heart, this memoir celebrates an unbreakable friendship that endured through every adventure and setback on their path to building a generation defining brand.
Genres: american-fiction, business, contemporary, biography-memoir, fashion-designers, 21st-century, fashion, fashion-design
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: friends-to-lovers, rags-to-riches
Setting: Hell's Kitchen, Missouri, New York City, University of Kansas
Period: 1990s, 21st Century
304 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books