About

For Kate Johnson, the signs that she would one day become one of the most talented designers of couture accessories to hit the fashion world became apparent early in life.

Her attraction to fabrics and any thing that allowed her to embellish her clothing – a button, a bow, a sequin, a special “something” found in a drawer – led her to a sewing machine early in adolescence.

In December 2007, Kate’s natural passion for fashion design became obvious when she unveiled at a private sold-out showing her line of one-of-a-kind purses inspired by her inborn love of beautiful fabrics, clothing and accessories. These reversible purses, each consisting of two or three hand-selected fabrics, were personally designed by Kate as if she were making them for herself. Her love of the process and the end product can be seen in every aspect of these wearable pieces of art meant to be worn and to match almost anything a woman might don for almost any occasion.

Kate’s fashion design education began early.
She took her first home economics course in junior high school, learning to sew clothes and to embellish what she created. By the time Kate went off to college, her focus turned to the fashion industry and a career as a fashion buyer.

She earned a B.S. degree in home economics, which included a concentration in textiles and interior design, from the University of California, Davis, and then set her sights on the broader fashion world. She had her first taste of the “real” fashion industry while on a fashion arts tour of Europe. There she visited many major design houses in London, France and Italy and realized she loved couture – those “over-the-top, never-find-another-one-like-it” fashion items. However, marriage changed her plans, and she began pursuing her fashion dreams in the educational arena.
Kate Johnston taught fashion design at Napa High School in Napa, CA, and then went on to teach tailoring at Napa Junior College. After this, she went on to a career in sales and marketing as a manufacturer’s representative for a variety of companies, which allowed her to express her entrepreneurial nature and to gain experience that later would be useful in starting her own company.

After taking on the role of co-chair for a major fundraising event from April 2006-October 2007 that raised just under a million dollars for the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco, Kate found herself exhausted and unable to sleep. She knew she needed to do something creative to find balance in her life, and in the sleepless hours of the night, her love of fashion and couture was reawakened and the idea for Petals’08 came to her as if in a dream. The next morning, she began plans for her line of purses, her fashion accessory company and her new life. And in her studio in San Francisco’s Nobb Hill district, Kate created Petals’08.

Kate could have begun designing dresses or coats or jeans, but she chose accessories instead. The fact that they were useful to most women appealed to her. Plus, they allowed her to express her creativity while doing what she loves: choosing two or three fabrics and then putting them together into something that gives rise to a feeling that comes across when someone carries that purse. And that’s what keeps her creating these couture purses: Her desire to provide women with purses that “help them create a feeling, portray an image or feel special.”

While her design abilities were not put to public use for quiet a number of years, the world now touts Kate Johnson’s fun-but-elegant purses as the most unique line on the market today and Kate herself as a pioneer in the fashion accessory industry. In the meantime, she’ll be in her Nobb Hill studio creating more purses.