Eastern Spring 2009 : Page 7
Nervous? Intimidated? “I loved it. You couldn’t pay for that much education.” After a year in Hong Kong, job offers improved. In 2003 Hacker was starting Nesi, Inc.’s accessory line, managing design, production and sales. She was used to the work, but just couldn’t accept the frenetic need to “make something just for the sake of making it,” like a child’s backpack with built-in speakers. Big, loud, heavy speakers. By then, she knew where her passion lay: high quality women’s accessories, not random product couplings like backpacks + speakers. As Hacker was exploring other work options, a friend in Nesi’s human resource department suggested that she meet Ben Harnett, a young designer with a background in painting and the classics. The HR friend was right, the attraction was there, but Hacker shied away from office dating. After a move up to the fashion giant Liz Claiborne, she did go out with Ben. “He liked my bright pink raincoat.” As romance bloomed, work passion flourished. The company wanted a $200 leather handbag with “lots of style and quality” to rival competitors’ bags selling for twice the price. “Heart racing,” Hacker threw herself into the challenge and “loved every single step.” So did the company when her bag sold out in one week. Toni Hacker had found her calling, but the question was how long she and Ben could “work ourselves silly for big fashion companies.” On April Fool’s Day, 2005, they joked at the kitchen table about a new Hayden-Harnett line, inventing the name “Hayden” for better flow with “Harnett.” She sketched a logo on her napkin. Its symmetry—“no matter how you turn it, it’s the same”—underscored their shared principles: beauty + function. “Later that day, we knew we were ready to make the leap into the wild world of fashion accessories sans parachute. The free fall was intense, but the landing has been totally worth the effort and lack of sleep.” The timing, she says, was perfect. “There was a tsunami of handbag love coming, and we were riding it.” With or without helpful tsunamis, most fashion startups seek investors, gladly trading full creative freedom for financial security. They spend heavily for advertising and trade shows and try to chase the latest fashion wind. From the first, Hayden-Harnett took a different path. They stubbornly chose 100% financial independence and refused the narrow demographics of most fashion lines, determined to appeal to women of all ages with “beautiful objects of use,” creating what Eastern 7
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