Andrea Brueckner

Andrea Brueckner owes Lindsay Lohan a favour. After the Hollywood actress was photographed with one of Brueckner’s handbags, the New York-based designer found her work in sudden demand. “A boutique called and said they wanted the bag Lindsay Lohan had,” says Brueckner. “I had no idea what they were talking about. It was only later that I saw the photo in Us Weekly. It turned out to be the piece of press that’s helped me the most.”

Brueckner, 30, is no stranger to the media – her bags were already being featured in popular magazines such as Lucky. After earning a bachelor of commerce while attending New College in 1999 and a bachelor of fine arts from New York’s prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology in 2003, Brueckner founded her eponymous handbag line in 2004.

“I pounded the pavement, going store to store, asking people to stock my bags,” she says. Her background in clothing design and attention to detail made her bags stand out, and her self-designed catalogues helped promote her products at trade shows. Still, now that she understands the power of celebrity, she’s using it to her advantage: this spring she sent Lohan a new bag as a gift, and the actress has already been photographed with it.