Celeste Austin is proof that sometimes your dream job finds you.
Today, she is the designer and founder of SavvyRoot, a Baton Rouge-based handbag and accessory brand. But Austin originally grew up wanting to be a dentist.
Three years ago, that all changed when a personal challenge revealed her true calling. Today, the 30-year-old entrepreneur is taking her business to the next level, teaming up with national manufacturers to produce SavvyRoot’s handbags.
For someone who handcrafted her entire line of handbags as recently as last December, the move means she can fill orders faster.
It also means she can spend more time doing what she loves: designing and meeting her customers face to face.
“There are so many things I want to do, like big totes, but I just don’t have the equipment. I thought it was time to leave that up to the big dogs and focus more on the designing,” she says.
The shift to manufacturing has meant lots of trial and error, according to Austin, who adds that she still plans to handcraft her signature snap scarf or “snap cowl,” the first item in her leather accessory line.
But besides spending a lot of time “Googling everything” and learning the manufacturing side of her business, the handbag change has also generated a hefty dose of excitement, like when she sees her design transformed into a product sample for the first time.
“There’s so much that goes into it,” she says. “It’s a lot of back and forth with the manufacturer.”
But she doesn’t mind the extra work when it means guaranteeing the product meets her high standards.
“All the bags I saw shopping had just too much, either too much metal or too many brand logos everywhere. Who wants that? I knew I could do something better.”
—Celeste Austin, SavvyRoot founder
Austin meets challenges with tenacity, pushing herself, for example, to find lower price points. Her bags currently range from $52 to $170 and are made with materials like genuine leather and calf hair.
Her drive to learn new things is a big reason why she is where she is today.
When she was younger, she always enjoyed fashion and keeping up with trends, so she taught herself to sew. At first, she used her new skills to brighten her home decor, sewing new throw pillows with each season.
Later, when she noticed the high cost of quality handbags, she challenged herself to make them and learned to sew with leather.
“All the bags I saw shopping had just too much, either too much metal or too many brand logos everywhere. Who wants that? I knew I could do something better,” Austin says.
What she developed was a simple yet elegant style.
“I was looking for something to go with a T-shirt and jeans as well as something a businesswoman could use,” she says.
Her approach soon found a niche. Following a successful debut on Etsy, an online marketplace focused on handmade and vintage items, Austin made key contacts in a New Orleans pop-up show and ultimately got her brand into several boutiques. Today, she has her products in 21 boutiques across five states, including six Louisiana cities: Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Monroe, Mandeville and Metairie.
Austin created and continues to update her company’s website, a skill she taught herself while marketing and branding the dental office where she used to work.
Austin, who holds an associate’s degree in biology from Southeastern Louisiana University, credits her former boss, local dentist
Dr. Jason Hutto, with recognizing her creative talent and encouraging her to set SavvyRoot in motion.
“For some people, you could go your whole life and never realize what talents you truly have unless someone lets you be you,” she says. “Dr. Hutto did that for me.” savvyroot.com
