Libby Andrews used to be all business.

After she studied personnel administration at the University of Kansas, she headed for the University of Chicago for an MBA. Her early professional career was in technology and sales management.

Yet when she was settled in at home in Chicago and had three children in three years, she found her creative right brain.

While her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, was working long hours, she began designing and marketing handbags and fine jewelry. In less than two years, through handbag parties, Web site and specialty stores, her business, Libby’s Luxuries, has had $250,000 in sales this year.

Andrews, who grew up in Kansas City, is one of a growing group of designing women who are directing their creative talents into bags.

Here we focus on a few young women with local connections in a wide range of personalities, price levels and stages in marketing their bags. Besides these, many others are making similar efforts in or out of the Kansas City area.

Consider Rachelle Copeland. She started her career as an assistant buyer in Southern California and worked her way up through a stream of accessory and clothing companies. At her last job she became friends with colleague Emily Ironi. They soon discovered they had similar backgrounds and tastes and formed a partnership. The Alexis Hudson handbag line, named by combining the names of Copeland’s daughter, now 5, and Ironi’s dog, was born.

“We just wanted to make beautiful functional bags,” says Copeland, the designer who moved to Kansas City last winter with her family. Her husband works with Science Diet Pet Food products.

Launched in the fall, the bags appear to be thriving in prime retailers, including New York’s Henri Bendels and, closer to home, at Standard Style Boutique in Leawood. They are priced in the $400-$800 range.

The purse, of course, has long been a strong symbol of femininity.

Certainly the wealthy and Hollywood types have appreciated the high-priced Birkin and Kelly bags, the ultimate in luxury.

But beyond the high-level name-dropping, the handbag has become the accessory of the moment.

Its profile was boosted by status seekers who joined waiting lists to pay thousands of dollars for the name bag. Line up here for Fendi’s baguettes and Vuitton’s graffiti. And, as frequently happens, the idea flowed down to a wide range of prices and novelty styles. A few years ago, the plastic Kelly-like “Jelly Kelly” sold for under $50 and became the rage and reason for a series of lawsuits.

Most women used to see the handbag simply as classic and functional, says Ellen Goldstein, chairman of the handbag department at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

“They bought two bags a year: one for fall and one for spring.” Bags have now become like jewelry or scarves, and women tend to collect them, Goldstein says.

A bag can cost $15 or well over $15,000. Several Web sites offer bags on loan to members just as libraries check out books.

Copeland says accessories, especially bags, have become significantly more popular in the last five years. The obsession with celebrity has helped to drive the so-called “It” item, usually from high-priced designers.

But women are getting smarter. Because of the economy, they may buy fewer clothes, and update the look with a new bag, she says.

Perhaps for those reasons, women are drawn to make bags. And, for now, the trend to soft shapes has made bags easier to construct. When styles go back to more structured traditional leathers, makers will likely have difficulty, she says.

Another example of a creative artisan is Kristina Briseno, who is working to support herself and her daughter with unique, eye-catching cardboard-based styles decorated with concert poster art.

A California native, she moved to Lawrence a few years ago and, for a time, worked in a restaurant. She says that her interest in design was triggered one day when she made a handbag for her daughter.

She started polishing her production method, which involves a book-binding kind of construction. She worked with Hammerpress, a lithograph and design studio that helped her promote her XYZ Handbags.

The bags start with a cardboard base that is folded and painted with an acetate seal. They are finished off with abstract art.

Briseno is selling them through variety shops around the country, including Bijin Day Spa in Prairie Village and her Web site, www.xyz handbags.com. She recently completed an order for 80 bags from a boutique in Nigeria.

Beyond her bags, she is working on a unique lighting fixture.

She works hard to get her bags out in the world as a brand. “I do every single fashion show,” she says. “Every event.”

Another passionate artisan is Heather Chaney, who is trying to squeeze time from her marketing job at the Lee Co. in Merriam to make and, she hopes, market her small, colorful leather bags

“I have always made things since I can remember,” Chaney says. She grew up in Harrisonville and studied fashion merchandising at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg.

She started doing fabric bags until about 18 months ago when, on a business trip to Greensboro, N.C., she came across a supplier with more leathers than she had ever seen in one place. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I called my husband and he said, ‘Buy as much as you can.’ ”

Her early styles were basic and simple. Now her bags have evolved into one-of-a-kind models embellished with vintage fabrics, colorful suede linings and antique brooches. “I like to find old clothes and rip them apart. My mind is always thinking,” she says.

At first friends were her major customers until she met someone who knew someone at the Day Spa, which placed an initial order for 10 bags.

“I’m trying to learn who my customer is,” she says. The young, 25 to 35, tend to favor her craziest looks. But she is finding she also has appeal among older women who buy her simpler styles.

Her retail prices run between $80 and $90.

At the other end of the financial spectrum, Copeland says she thinks part creatively and part strategically. With a successful history in the industry, she was confident the partners’ vision was on target. So far, so good. At the beginning of the season, they took bags to a New York trade show, only to discover they were too late to obtain space. They made the retail rounds themselves. Copeland says they received orders from every store.

This season’s styles include a log-shaped soft version of the popular hobo in various leather and braided textures. She also makes a $400 miniature, which is a favorite for her young daughter and Hollywood women.

As for Andrews, she says she started with bags and added jewelry a few months later. (Her jewelry is available at Halls.) Friends were the first to order the bags, and they offered to have parties for her to show them off. The events have worked well and are so important that she lists the schedule on her Web site, www.libbysluxe.com.

Women like the fact they can choose the color, the lining and the pockets. They’re getting custom-made styles. “They just get hooked,” she says. Her prices run from about $250 to $700 for skins such as crocodile and ostrich.

She says she wants her bags to be easy to carry and, especially important, unique. “I want people to come up to my customers and say, ‘Where did you get that bag?’

Jackie White