Some Inspiration from The Real Monica

The other night I was looking around for inspiration, and had remembered that Monica Lewinsky had a line of bags she designed. She used this as a way to move on from the whole scandal. It's a shame that not just this one time, but also once before, back in 2004 or so, I had tried to look into her work, but her site, at that time was in permanent transition, and this time it's simply gone. Luckily, I was able to dig up pieces of her site, from two different stages, thanks to the Internet Archive. In addition, I was able to grab some images from a couple of auctions.

Monica's label was known as "The Real Monica," and the company being The Real Monica Inc., LLC. The trademark, "The Real Monica," was cancelled in late 2007, and the LLC is also defunct. It's a shame that her work didn't continue. Just think about Vera Bradley, in 2002, and look at the popularity now. In my opinion, if her handbag business had persisted, her bags would have at least been on par as far as popularity and quality, if not better.

Anyway, the following are snapshots of her site and thumbnails of her bags that have survived thanks to the Internet Archive.

Starting with a few snapshots of some site splash pages:

In Monica's words, about The Real Monica:

The following are groups of thumbnails of her bags that I was able to capture:

(Note: These are screen captures. The blank spots are where images that weren't saved were located.
I elected to blank them out since there was no visual interest in missing images.)

Totes:

Single Strap:

Double Strap:

Mini Evening:

Petite:

Carryalls:

Slingpacks:

Accessories:

Beach Bag:

 Messenger:

The following are some shots I grabbed from some auctions.

Auction 1:

Auction 2:

Auction 3:

A random image of a tote. The quality's of the image is not very good, but it's another color example worth noting:

A paparazzi image of Monica with one of her bags:

Some fan pictures that were submitted and posted on The Real Monica page:

This is what I was able to gather. Almost all of the larger bags seem to have been reversible. The smaller bags and accessories seem to have just a coordinating lining fabric.

There's certainly a good amount of inspiration in Monica's creations.