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"  Photo: Monica Botkier Botkier is getting ready to ring in 10 years this summer with a Legacy collection consisting of three bags revamped from previous styles. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re designing so many new things a year, and I gravitate toward wearing those,&amp;quot; explained head designer Monica Botkier. &amp;quot;But then I&amp;#039;ll find [past styles] in my closet that really inspire me and that&amp;#039;s what led us to this collection. We picked three of my favorites and reworked them with more modern details. I think diehard fans will definitely recognize the original silhouettes.&amp;quot; On how life has changed in the past 10 years: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s been a crazy roller coaster ride! I started this as a single girl, a photographer in the city, and now I&amp;#039;m a business-owner, and a mother of three. In the very beginning my day included everything from designing to running to the factories, packing boxes, getting orders from my little fax machine, and doing a lot of the grunt work. Now it&amp;#039;s more strategic. Because of my background as a photographer, I&amp;#039;m really into the art direction part, and I work well with both the art department and the design team. I still get involved with putting out fires and some logistical things here and there because, for the most part, we&amp;#039;re still an independent, small company. You live and breath it. Anything that goes on, you&amp;#039;re going to know about it and want to fix it.&amp;quot; On the highlights and low points: &amp;quot;Initially it was just so incredible. I remembered sitting in my apartment, and I got a phone call from Sex and the City, and they wanted to pull my bags. I was like, &amp;#039;How did you get this number?!&amp;#039; That was the first point when I realized people knew about us. I still get a thrill out of seeing women on the street with the bags. Especially in Soho, New York\u2014I usually see a couple of people. Seeing celebrities with the bags it always a lot of fun, and I still get excited. Beyonc\u00E9 was one of my favorite ones, but also Rihanna, Heidi Klum, and Jessica Alba. Some times we&amp;#039;d see people and have no idea [they owned one], like &amp;#039;Where did they get that?&amp;#039; Challenge-wise, I started this company in a real booming economy, in 2003, and the first challenges I felt were when things started to get shaky in 2009, 2010. On the trade side, it&amp;#039;s tougher margins, the cost of fuel starts making things more difficult\u2026all those little business 101 things, advanced MBA stuff. Another real issue for me, in general, is [being a] women in business. It&amp;#039;s always a challenge [balancing] work and family, but it&amp;#039;s a wonderful challenge and every woman deserves her choice of career, family, both, or neither. &amp;quot; On where she&amp;#039;d like to see her business in 10 more years: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d love to see expansion and to get in deeper. We had shoes for a few years that we did in-house and they were amazing\u2014I&amp;#039;d love to see us do that again. I&amp;#039;m not really interested in apparel, but I&amp;#039;d love to see us get into all those great little leather things you can do. I want to be a great, approachable brand, and to harness what we&amp;#039;ve [already] created and take it further.&amp;quot; Styles will hit botkier.com in this summer. From left to right in above image: the Legacy Satchel ($595), the Legacy Top-Handle ($495), and the Valentina Satchel ($395). "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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