For Sara Naghedi, her eponymous accessories brand is like one of her children.
In fact, the company she started in 2016 as a passion project is the same age as her daughter. “I’ve been watching my brand grow alongside my daughter, which has been amazing,” the designer reflected in an interview in her Flatiron office earlier this month.
It all started with the handwoven neoprene St. Barths Tote, which remains the company’s bestseller to date, having sold more than 433,500 units of the bag since its launch, the founder said.
“That’s quite a feat to have a single product be your bestseller for 10 years,” Naghedi said. “Hearing that statistic while we’ve been planning our anniversary kind of hit me, but in a good way. And the journey here has been so exciting.”
She credits Bloomingdale’s for giving the brand its “big break” back when Naghedi was starting out in 2016. “That first milestone moment for me was when Marissa [Galante Frank] from Bloomingdale’s saw the vision of the brand and brought it into the store, that was huge for us,” Naghedi reflected.
Other key moments for the company came in 2021, when executives from Liberty London came calling after discovering the label on Instagram, and then in 2024 when Naghedi launched its first shoe collection.
For her first dip into shoes, Naghedi landed on three debut sandal styles for the resort 2024 season — the St. Barths slide, Laguna platform and Havana sandal in multiple colorways. Today, the shoe collection spans sandals, flats, loafers, sneakers and heels, all sporting the brand’s signature handwoven detailing.
“The shoe business was a huge learning curve for me personally, but the collection has been received pretty well,” Naghedi noted. “I think launching a new category is always hard and it takes time and patience, but I think we’ve really hit our stride. No pun intended.”
The company’s footwear category hit another milestone this month when it officially launched on Nordstrom’s website, joining its handbag range.
“You know, bags are so universal,” the founder said. “A bag can be any shape, any size, any style and it will work for most people. But I’m learning that people speak so vastly different about shoes, and that you are just never going to make a shoe that works for everybody. That is my biggest learning. I’m sure for people who work in shoes, that’s not new. But for me, it was a ‘wow’ moment.”
Aside from bags and shoes, Naghedi has also expanded into cosmetics pouches, phone cases, belts, and bag charms in recent years. “We have so much innovation happening right now, and the shoes that launched two years ago — it’s just been a really exciting time for the brand,” she added.
As for how the brand approaches innovation, the founder noted that the often used buzzword means something a little different to her. “Innovation, for us, is anything straying away from our classic St. Barths and Nomad bags, which probably, for most brands, is not a lot of innovation,” Naghedi admits. “But it takes us a lot to come up with something new.”
The founder cited a recent example of incorporating suede into the line, which took the company about 20 attempts to get to the final product. “We are working on some new weaves, which is exciting,” she added. “And we are figuring out more ways to use suedes and leathers in future collections.”
This push for newness comes after several years of growth for the accessories brand. Indeed, Naghedi said that it wasn’t until 2020 that the brand began putting “meaningful resources” behind the business and building its e-commerce channel. Since then, sales have grown 18 times, with the brand averaging more than 40 percent annual growth over the past three years and is now sold in 441 retailers around the world.
“Wholesale has been consistently very strong for us,” Naghedi said. “The stores that write [orders] are really dedicated to the brand, really loyal to us and really supportive of things that we’ve done. They’re always willing to try new things with us, and that’s been really one of our big achievements.”
Looking ahead, a Naghedi-owned store could be in the cards for the brand. “In the long-term, maybe even a short-term dream of mine, is to open a storefront here in the northeast,” she said. “That idea is always sort of percolating in the back of my mind. I’d love to have a showroom-store combination in this area. That’s, of course, the dream.”
