Dressed in a colorful fuschia top and white pants that leave behind a whiff of elegance while epitomizing the pleasantness of her personality Juliette Mills-Lutterodt, best known as Juls, wears an infectious smile as she reaches out to clients at her 2014 Juls Collections bag sale in Accra. It is with this pleasant smile that she narrates the story of how a mother of three, a wife, an entrepreneur and cancer survivor could be motivated to continue to run two successful hair salons and still find strength to develop a bag collection on her sick bed.
“I was actually home sick recovering from breast cancer,” she recounts the events that inspired her fashion label Juls Collections. “Going through magazines and looking through different things in bed I came across a magazine from either Neiman’s or Nordstrom’s or one of the high end brands.”
It then occurred to her that the average woman would be unable to purchase handbags at such exorbitant prices and said to herself, “Wait a minute. I can do this. This can’t be that difficult.”
Difficult, as in building a brand that designed and produced luxury handbags for women at affordable prices. She then began an intensive research of the industry, reached out to various manufacturers and designers to create her sketches.
“The bags are all Italian leather with best quality stitching. They’re extremely affordable and the range is between $125 and $625,” she elucidates and adds, “My goal was to see every young woman who wanted to appreciate a good quality bag be able to own it and not feel like they broke the bank.”
Indeed, that goal seems to have become a reality for many fashionable young women. For her first bag sale in Accra, she brought along only 50 bags to test the market. This time around, she brought over 200 handbags – the reception had exceeded her expectations.
“Oh my God let me tell you,” Juls expresses about the reception of her bag collection as she touches the middle of her chest lightly and continues, “I am forever humbled.”
She adds: “I think that relationship is everything and I thrive on building great relationships with people and those relationships through the handbags, again, have brought women together. “
Juls Collection was recently featured on the runway at New York Fashion Week alongside AdrianAlicea’s Monserate collection in just about three years of existence.
This intriguing woman seems to be unstoppable. Having worked in hair care as a professional stylist for over 12 years with two successful salons, Jul’s Studios operating in New Jersey, she devotes her time to designing fashionable items, activism and advocating for cancer awareness.
Awareness, through “Pink for Africa” her breast cancer foundation that seeks to educate uninformed women about the disease.
“Cancer is a type of disease that is very quiet. It doesn’t hurt in the beginning so women who are not very educated [about it] do not feel it’s important to get their breasts checked since it doesn’t hurt. It’s vital for me to share with women as a survivor,” she asserts.
This dynamic woman admits that developing Juls Collections while on her sick bed was a healthy distraction as she dealt with cancer. She asserts: “It actually made me forget what I was going through. When I designed this collection, I didn’t know that it would become [a] source of support for my breast cancer foundation. So 20% of my proceeds go to support ‘Pink for Africa.’”
When Juls visited Ghana last year, she traveled with 10,000 fliers containing information about self breast exams, sized small enough to fit into the small pockets of women’s handbags – this was just one way of encouraging routine self-checks among women.
Speaking of the future of Juls Collections, she envisages:
“In the future we’re looking to see, as we grow, how we can be on our own platform. What I would like is to be able to do Africa Fashion Week, be able to be in South Africa, be able to be in Ghana, be able to be in different parts of Africa and work with local designers to incorporate some of my work.”
And you better believe she will accomplish just that.
Check out Juls Collections