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Hillary Taymour is nothing if not hardcore. She launched her handbag collection, Collina Strada, while still a student at FIDM and working at Guess in Southern California, where she grew up. She didn’t start by whipping up a couple samples to show around at boutiques. “I think I made 300 bags in my apartment. I worked from 8 o’clock when I got home until 2 in the morning, making bags,” she says. She got the word out and earned initial orders by wearing the pieces, and the mega-retailers soon took notice: Target was one of her early supporters.

In 2009, she uprooted herself and moved her production to New York so she could really push her line forward. “I was like, ‘Either I’m going to go full-force with this, or I’m going to keep half-assing it,’” she explains. And she is not slacking. All of the bags are made by hand from eco-conscious materials like organic cotton and veggie-tanned leather, and she’s intent on defining and evolving her aesthetic from season to season. “I really try to make a collection, and I feel like handbag designers don’t,” she says. Eventually, she wants to get into the business of clothes-making too, and something tells us she will follow through.