The story of Wannasiri Kongman and Jesse Dorsey even makes Cinderella gasp. The Thai woman and the Canadian man meet in New York in the 90s. There is love, there is passion – and this idea of your own bag. More than twenty years later, Boyy’s handbags are a firm fixture on the fashion scene – and Wannasiri and Jesse are still the couple that catches everyone’s eye on the street. A conversation about coincidences and the power of your gut feeling.
FACES: You met in New York City. Love at first sight?
Jesse Dorsey: That was 2004, a gray February, and the fact that we met at all was a complete coincidence. We had no mutual friends, no overlaps whatsoever. We met in some club, just like that, nobody introduced us. It was fate, I guess you could say.
F: What did you think when you first saw Jesse?
Wannasiri Kongman: It was like a movie. (laughs) He greeted me and I looked behind me, assuming he was talking to someone else. I thought he was hot, very hot in fact, right from the start!
F: The foundation stone of your relationship was laid. How did it go on until you decided to found your own fashion label??
JD: I was a musician and DJ back then, even producing soundtracks and all sorts of things to keep my head above water in New York. Then I met Wannasiri and quickly realized how obsessed she was with handbags. We walked through downtown Manhattan, for example, and she knew the names of all the it-bags that New Yorkers carried through the streets. For me, it was a real crash course in luxury bags! (laughs)
F: And you ended up being infected by their enthusiasm.
JD: Yes, absolutely! Suddenly I felt the same way; I could hardly move anywhere without the handbags catching my eye. I hoped the ladies wouldn’t misunderstand my looks, as I was only interested in the handbags and not in them at all. (laughs)
First love, then business
F: How did this passion eventually turn into a business?
JD: We have often talked about designing a handbag ourselves. Of course, it all felt very abstract at the time; after all, neither Wannasiri nor I had the faintest idea of how fashion would actually be designed and produced. I made music, she studied journalism.
F: Did your contacts from the music world help you?
JD: I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. So I called a few people and Wannasiri also activated her network. Then somehow we got to this man in New York who made samples, but he sent us to another one a few blocks away where we had to buy leather. Although we had no training in fashion, we were right in the heart of this fashion metropolis – we felt the pulse of the city and the industry.
F: What advice would you have wanted at the time?
WK: To be honest, if we had known more about how to build our own brand back then, we probably wouldn’t have dared to take this step in the first place.
JD: We had no expectations and didn’t have to compete with anyone. We were simply two young adults with passion and an idea. The fact that we were so inexperienced ultimately led us to success.
No rules, no worries
F: You didn’t follow any rules or worry about anything at all, right?
WK: Exactly. We didn’t even think about needing a marketing or PR team, we just designed our bag and then worked out how to sell it.
F: Was the fashion industry better then than it is now?
WK: In the nineties, the fashion industry was a secret club. You couldn’t just get in like that. The only way to be seen by people back then was to be printed in magazines. Everything is different today. Today, anyone and everyone has the opportunity to enter the fashion industry, set up their own label and make their own collections public.
F: Social media is making its contribution to the democratization of the fashion industry. On the other hand, social media also increases the pressure. Do you agree?
WK: Of course, with Boyy we benefit from the fact that we and our collections are seen all over the world. When it comes to business, Instagram is a great platform for generating attention and being in constant communication with your community. From a purely personal point of view, however, I don’t particularly like social media. Keeping the balance is extremely difficult.
JD: When we started Boyy, there were already blogs, but the number of fashion brands and designers was much more manageable compared to today. This applies not only to fashion, but also to music.
Sometimes it’s up to chance
F: There is this story of Lou Doillon and Boyy. Will you tell me about them?
JD: This story is a good example of how much social media can push you. Lou Doillon was standing on 42nd Street in New York, smoking a cigarette, carrying one of our bags and being photographed with it. That was pure coincidence! This picture went viral and helped us enormously. These days, that hardly ever happens to you anymore, there’s just far too much happening on Instagram and other social media.
WK: The difference to today is that back then people knew it was authentic. It was real. Today, many things are fake.
F: Chance plays a major role in your life. Do you even believe in this concept?
WK: I rather believe that it had to happen the way it did. With good luck!
F: New York was convinced, and gradually the whole world acquired a taste for your bags. Denmark was then one of the first places where you opened your own store. How did this come about?
JD: Denmark was one of the biggest markets for us at the time. So we decided to travel to Copenhagen on a visit to Europe. We just walked down the street, saw this one building and the sign that said this property was for sale. We were there for three days and finally left the city with a new place to do business in our pockets!
WK: Then it was six months before we opened. Once again, we took the same approach here as we did when we founded Boyy: we listened to our gut feeling and just did it. We didn’t carry out any analysis beforehand or think carefully about whether this step was the right one – we just felt it.
JD: It’s like our mantra: when our gut tells us to do something, we trust it.
F: How do you describe your formula for success?
JD: Luck and ambition, that’s it.
Boyy and the love of Milan
F: You put a lot of effort into the design of your stores. This certainly also applies to your own home. How should we imagine your apartment in Milan?
JD: We found this really unusual apartment in Milan, which we bought after three years of renting. Setting this up is an ongoing process. We would like to renovate a few things in the future and also buy new parts from time to time. You should know that our home was renovated in 1972 by one of the most famous Italian Brutalist architects. As a result, I feel like I’m living in the middle of an Italian tourist attraction every day. (laughs)
F: Sounds like a real gem!
JD: You should see the furniture, all specially designed for this apartment back in the seventies.
F: Do you have a favorite piece among your furniture?
JD: We have these great pieces that Danish artist Fos designed for the Céline stores when Phoebe Philo was still in charge of the brand. Today we even work together with him. Then we have this great table by Carlo Scarpa, which I really love, and lots of other things.
F: How would you describe your interior design style?
JD: If you were to visit us at home, you would find yourself in a 70s universe! But not this kitschy 70s stuff, but this minimalist direction that has endured to this day.
F: If you’re so into the 70s, I’m sure you buy a lot of vintage items in second-hand stores!
JD: Yes, I’m a big vintage buyer, and no, not in stores, but through auctions. I travel to Germany, Holland or Italy for this – I look for these unusual pieces and then actually travel after them.
The style of Wannasiri and Jesse
F: From furniture back to fashion. Have you always been interested in trends and fashion?
JD: The 80s were my decade, that’s what I grew up with. I loved skateboarding and the whole culture surrounding it. Then at some point Ralph Lauren came along, and later Fiorucci from Italy, which I knew from Madonna covers. My brother took a completely different approach to fashion. He wore a lot of Issey Miyake or Yohji Yamamoto and even organized a fashion show at school. Fashion has always been very present in my life.
WK: Fashion was the only thing that really interested me. I saw these great shoes or bags in music videos and always knew exactly which pieces I wanted. When I was ten, I used to organize these shoots at home at night, where I styled myself and photographed myself as if for a magazine cover. I loved styling my friends and myself, it was my great passion and I was absolutely obsessed with always creating the right look.
F: How do I have to imagine your style when you came to New York?
WK: At home with my parents and where I grew up, I didn’t fit in at all. A lot of people didn’t understand me because I simply dressed a lot more funky than they did. When I moved to New York, I felt really liberated.
F: Do you remember one of your most outlandish outfits?
WK: It was the year 2000, and I was wearing this eccentric vintage belt that made me feel like Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex and the City”. (laughs) The manager of the restaurant where I was working at the time scolded me because he found my outfit so impossible. I learned at that moment: I don’t care what you think about me and my look.
Maybe Boyy will move to Zurich soon?
F: Zurich has even inspired you to create a collection. How do you like the city?
WK: Zurich is still an insider tip for me. Many people probably don’t even have the city on their radar – even though it has so much to offer!
JD: I like it when a city is not so famous or popular with everyone. It’s the same with Milan. Not everyone likes Milan, and not everyone has Zurich on their radar. However, both cities have so much to offer and so many great places, restaurants and cafés – it’s just fun to spend time here.
WK: I’m actually thinking about moving to Zurich! I really want to experience Zurich in summer. I want to see people spending the summer by the lake and being in the middle of the city at the same time. It must be great!
F: I wouldn’t be surprised if you had an apartment in Zurich soon! Making spontaneous decisions is your thing. What other characteristics of each other are particularly important to you?
JD: Wannasiri is very spiritual, whereas I am a huge head person. While I often thought about things too much in the past, she just did what she wanted without giving it much thought. I admire that very much and it inspires me from day to day.
WK: Having been together for so long, I have the impression that we have adapted more and more to each other. I now also think more about life and everything that lies ahead of me than I used to. Jesse has always accompanied me on this journey, he supports me a lot, and I love and appreciate that enormously about him.
Happy end in sight
F: Looking back on your founding story, what moment or moment makes you particularly sentimental?
JD: Looking back, it all feels like a fairy tale or as if we had won the lottery. It was great to be able to simply work on our collections without any expectations. Our first showroom was the kitchen in my New York apartment. We managed to turn one dollar into two, and then four, and so on.
F: Do you feel like you’ve already reached your happy ending?
JD: We are both people who are always looking ahead. Of course we could just sail off into the sunset, but we’re not like that, we want more.
Boyy
Boyy is the baby of Jesse Dorsey and Wannasiri Kongman. She is a journalist, comes from Thailand and is new to New York, he comes from Canada, is a musician and is immediately enchanted by this woman who prances through the streets of Big Apple with designer bags on her arm, fantasizing about her own brand. Fire, temperament, optimism and a great love of design weld Jesse and Wannasiri together – and form the basis of their own brand Boyy, whose bags are quickly sweeping the run-of-the-mill it-bags out of fashion people’s hands. Their success confirms that they should continue. And they do: With shoes, accessories and so many ideas that the future can’t come fast enough. boyy.com
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Teaser photo and photos: © Boyy
