The word on 1154 LILL continues to spread, thanks to loyal customers who love to share the story behind their one-of-a-kind bag, and the experience they had while designing it. Our original design-your-own-handbag concept also draws the attention of the media and we are lucky enough to be included in many local and national magazines and newspapers, a national US Postal Service campaign and a show on the Style Network.

We are also lucky enough to add several amazing members to the LILL team. Jessica Audey adds to our cutting department. She later changes her role to include inventory merchandising management. Rachel Dodge joins in first in production and soon after brings her graphic design and photography skills to our website, signage and printed material.

Our retail boutique is getting increasingly crowded on weekends, as is our back-of-store production and office space. Owner Jennifer Velarde finds a new space for these functions and moves 1154 LILL production and offices to a separate “headquarters” location allowing additional retail floor space in the boutique at 2523 N. Halsted.

We also refocus on our core this year to ensure that the product and the custom-experience always go hand-in-hand. We stop wholesaling as a result of this decision and make a commitment to grow internally by adding additional stores in the future. We also refocus our product line and cut out the pillows, body products, jewelry and cards to instead concentrate on what we do best, custom handbags.