Icon Handbags and Shoes Company History.

Places to buy Icon Handbags & Shoes:

• Zappos

They are wearable, functional conversation pieces. Personal, supple leather adornments that range from shoes and handbags to makeup cases and wallets, all emblazoned with artistic images, both contemporary and classical. Think Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup can, Norman Rockwell’s Kellogg’s cereal ads, Gaugin’s Tahitian bathing beauties, Degas’ dancers, the Art Nouveau imagery of Gustav Klimt, and more. All of them, ICONS.

ICON shoes, handbags and accessories are crafted of the softest, most sumptuous, top grain American leather. ICON uses an innovative, permanent printing process to bond images to leather. This revolutionary process creates exact replicas of fine art and insures that the images are intrinsic to the leather. The art won’t rub or wash off. What’s more, the process makes it possible to print very limited editions of each ICON style or even one-of-a-kind products.

Here’s how the exclusive ICON printing process works:

• Once the art image has been licensed, it is placed within the context of the item: the high-resolution image is digitally arranged to fit the product.
• Each image then digitally printed onto a specialized transfer medium.
• Panels of fine leather are carefully selected and cut by hand to fit each product.
• The images are then heat-transferred by hand onto the leather.

ICON was founded in 1999 by a Hollywood filmmaker and art collector who was committed to the idea that comfortable shoes don’t have to be boring. He had the vision to create comfortable, American-made shoes that were—literally—walking works of art. After having a succession of artist-friends paint prototype shoes purchased at retail, this entrepreneur set out to develop a financially feasible method of manufacturing his creations. He came up with the unique printing process and designed the required tooling. Working a little Hollywood magic of his own, the filmmaker-turned-manufacturer refined the process and ICON shoes were born.

By Spring 2001, ICON’s limited edition shoes were available to savvy customers of more than six-dozen of the nation’s finest department and specialty stores, including Neiman Marcus and Arthur Beren of San Francisco. Since then, ICON has broadened its product offerings to include handbags, high-fashion shoes and personal leather goods. Manufacturing has expanded beyond the United States to Italy and other countries. Images include beautiful works from the world’s great artists, as well as period advertising art, and even that icon of freedom, the American flag. ICON holds the worldwide distribution rights to all of the imagery it uses.

ICON is based in Santa Monica, California.