As a young girl, I remember spending afternoons with her grandmother folding wonton dumplings, knotting cords for necklaces filled with jade and precious stones, and looking over the intricate embroidery patterns of old quilts and robes. My grandmother, who was a clothier “artiste” for silver screen legends Katherine Hepburn and Anthony Quinn, as well as a master at Chinese knotting, instilled in me a deep reverence for my cultural roots and passion for working with my hands.

Deeply ingrained in my heritage, I draw much of my inspiration from my Chinese roots with her signature Chinese “Eternity” knot-inspired weave as the main focus. My goal is to create collections that are of outstanding quality and timeless designs - much like the art of Chinese knotting that she learned from my grandmother, which is integrated throughout my work.

I have been pretty lucky with my production in the sense that my samples have always been done very well and in a pretty timely manner. The Ci-fu's (Chinese for master pattern makers) really enjoy my styles, especially working on the knotting weave and are pretty enthusiastic about diving right in. Sometimes though they get carried away and do their own interpretation which is pretty funny to see as well. For one line, I added a fringe. The Ci-fu decided to reinterpret my weave so that fringe would come from the weave instead of adding it. Although I did not go with this in the end, it was great to see another approach. You never know - I might use his idea in an upcoming collection...

My nightmares to date are with my factory when they make careless errors such as using the wrong color skins and match the wrong kind of skin to the lamb skins. Also, they also underestimate my leather quantities which makes me chase my suppliers for little quantities of leather constantly (e.g. 10 skins of snake.) Everything really boils down to the patterns and providing the correct leather consumption figures to get the correct costing so that the pricing reflects this accurately. I am sure I am not the only one who goes through this because this is where the hard work kicks in.

Katherine Kwei handbags blends everything from luxury brands to vintage pieces to the latest street wear to create a polished yet chic and playful, figure-flattering silhouette. I hope that my refined sensibility reflects in my pieces and appeals to a woman who is confident and secure in her own sense of style.