CityState: Business
Custom Collaboration
Kimberly Pucci custom jewelry and
handbag designer and Marc Allen
bespoke menswear team up for style.
Two of Rhode Island’s top custom designers are forming
a local fashion A-team. Kimberly Pucci, a luxury handbag and
jewelry designer, and bespoke menswear designer Marc Streisand,
of Marc Allen Fine Clothiers, have partnered up to offer fans of
fine goods access to handmade Italian leather handbags and oneof-a-kind
jewelry as well as men’s custom-made suits and luxury
sportswear, available exclusively through their shops.
Pucci and Streisand are working together to bridge the fashion
gap across genders while pivoting their business models during
the pandemic. They’ve created outdoor Sip and Shop events where
clients can sip cocktails and browse luxury accessories, jewelry
and clothing on the patio at Marc Allen’s Newport showroom.
Pucci also launched a website and has an appointment-only showroom
at the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport.
They’re collaborating for lifestyle photo shoots that show their
accessories and clothing in social-distancing settings in Rhode
Island, such as Newport
Polo, boating in
Newport and croquet
at the Ocean House.
The business partnership
was sealed
out of a coincidence.
“The funny thing is
that Kim’s daughter
and my son are in
school together over
at Moses Brown [in
Providence], however
we didn’t know each
other,” Streisand says.
“One day, I was on
LinkedIn and saw
something about her
luxury handmade bags from Tuscany and I said, ‘I need to
meet her.’ ”
It was kismet that their kids attend the same school, and
they both hand out bright orange business cards. After they
met, they brainstormed ways they could collaborate. Pucci
works with Italian leather artisans to handcraft handbags in
vibrant hues with custom stitching, hardware and more. She
does the same for fine jewelry using gold, precious stones
and diamonds, and Streisand deals in custom-made Italian
suits, jackets and other clothing and accessories using fine
materials. He now offers his clients a connection to Pucci’s
handmade men’s leather bags in his showroom, and provides
them with details about her one-of-a-kind women’s handbags
and jewelry for the ladies in their lives.
Pucci has an extensive fashion background in Tuscany,
having lived in Florence for sixteen years and worked with some
of the top goldsmiths and jewelry companies in the world. She’s
also connected to families that own the largest luxury goods
factories in Tuscany that craft for Burberry, Manolo Blahnik and
Ferragamo, affording her clients access to these high-quality
leather goods and jewelry. Working with a men’s custom suitmaker
made sense to extend her fashion footprint.
“Marc and I are pushing the envelope on lifestyle and collaborating,”
Pucci says. “We are making sure everybody feels they can
wear both Kimberly Pucci and Marc Allen. We’re showing them
new ways to do that.” —J.C.
Kimberly Pucci, 449 Thames St., Newport, 864-1003 (showroom by
appointment only), kimberlypucci.com; Marc Allen, 200 South Main
St., Providence, 453-0025; 142 Bellevue Ave., Newport, (seasonal)
619-5750, marcalleninc.com �
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF KIMBERLY PUCCI AND
MARC ALLEN/@MIACAMPOPIANOPHOTOGRAPHY.
20 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l OCTOBER 2020