In any endeavor, there are those who produce and those who craft. The factory worker pulls levers and assembles pieces but holds no more pride of ownership in one widget than they do the last. It’s a job at its best, and a chore at its worse.
But to craft is to revel in every detail of the act of creation. It is to select each ingredient in a dish, every stitch in a garment, every bolt in a machine with the utmost care and to assemble them with love and pride. There’s a reason arts and crafts get lumped together so often – the line between them is indistinct, if it exists at all.
Meet one of the makers…
LOCAL SINCE 2008
KAY STANLEY CREATES HIGH-QUALITY, LINEN AND LEATHER HANDBAGS AND ACCESSORIES FOR HER CELEBRATED LOCAL BRAND, SPARTINA 449. SHE’S ALSO A PRETTY GOOD SLALOM WATER SKIER.
Kay Stanley
This local artist spreads Lowcountry style around the world.
By now it’s become a symbol of the Lowcountry as ubiquitous as Spanish moss and sunshine – the signature handbag of Spartina 449. From their flagship store in Bluffton to retail shelves the world over, the brand has served as an ambassador of our region, reflecting our sophistication and color.
It’s one of the Lowcountry’s greatest success stories, and it almost didn’t happen.
“The plan was, in January 2009 we were going to make our debut selling to the wholesale marketplace,” said founder Kay Stanley. “What I had not planned on was the big financial collapse. I already had goods on boats heading to South Carolina, and the trade shows we attended were pretty slow. It was a very scary time and here we were launching a new company. We almost closed the doors before we even launched it.”
Thankfully, Stanley and her husband, Curt Seymour, stuck it out and enjoyed a first year beyond anything they were expecting. That upward trajectory has grown ever steeper each year since, with the signature handbags, apparel and accessories emerging as the “it” look for a young, vibrant demographic.
For Stanley, the essence of Spartina 449 stems from two things. First is the inspiration she draws from Daufuskie Island. She and her husband moved to the island from Kansas after selling off a successful scrapbooking business, based on nothing more than Internet research and photos she’d spied in Southern Living.
“We had no idea – we’d never been to this part of the country at all. There’s so much history to it and so many stories to tell,” she said. “That’s one thing that I wanted to incorporate – not selling a handbag but telling a story of the island I love.”
The second is her natural artistic talent, bred from and encouraged by her mother. Or at least, encouraged to a point.
“Ever since I could remember I was an artist. I followed my mother around and I’d mimic her – if she’d draw, I’d draw. If she’d paint, I’d paint,” she said. “In college, she requested adamantly that I was not to study any kind of art degree. She did not want me to be a starving artist.”
Stanley honored her mother’s request, pursuing a journalism degree but falling into art nonetheless with a design job at an ad agency right out of college. When she met Seymour, he was working in electronic sales but running a side business selling brass replicas of KU’s “Big Jay” mascot out of his closet.
“But he was not an artist, so when he met me, he thought, ‘Maybe I’d better date her,’” said Stanley with a laugh “So I started doing work for him on a freelance basis doing collegiate products that we’d sell in gift stores.”
The couple’s creative energies would lead to the formation of K&Company, a scrapbooking company formed when the trend was just building steam in the late ’90s.
“It grew to be fairly big company, bigger than Spartina,” she said. “We sold to all the big mass merchandisers – Walmart, Target, QVC, Michael’s. It was a very fun industry.”
They sold a decade later, and found their way to Daufuskie with the intention to retire. All you have to do is look on the arm of any well-dressed woman to know how that went.
“I didn’t give retirement much of a chance, I don’t think,” said Stanley.
For those who have made Spartina 449 their signature style, and the 170+ employees who are part of the organization’s growing empire, it’s a good thing she didn’t.
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