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Today, Laura Vogel (Mktg,Fin’20) has earned nationwide recognition for her collection of Italian leather handbags, Vogelle. SUCCESS Magazine recently named her No. 1 on its of top 10 aspirational entrepreneurs, and she has been featured in other publications including “.” To get to where she is now, Vogel had to adapt to the unexpected—including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unprecedented times

In 2020, Vogel was in her last semester at Leeds and preparing to launch . She traveled to Milan that January to pick up the first products, then organized a trunk show at her sorority house to sell the chic leather shoulder bags.

But in March, the world stopped.

"Honestly, thank God I [launched] it when I did because if I hadn’t launched before COVID, I don’t know if I would have made the investment,” Vogel said.

She quickly pivoted her marketing plan away from on-the-ground retail. In-person classes were canceled, and her part-time job at Nordstrom was on pause, so she threw her energy into messaging influencers about Vogelle, most of whom did not respond.

Then she reached out to Caelynn Bell (née Miller-Keyes), a contestant on Season 23 of “The Bachelor.”

"She had about 1.3 million followers, and she responded right away,” Vogel remembered. “It was so crazy. I don’t know how she saw my message, but she responded and said, ‘This is so amazing. This is such a cool story. I would love the black bag.’”

The bag, one of Vogelle’s first designs, became Miller-Keyes' go-to. The influencer recommended it to her followers in a , and Vogelle’s sales immediately started to pick up.

“Not only did her followers start buying it, but in my community, it legitimized it for people that this [bag] was a good product, and she was wearing it,” Vogel said. “It wasn’t just this thing I was doing.”

Thank God I [launched] it when I did because if I hadn’t launched before COVID, I don’t know if I would have made the investment.

Laura Vogel, Founder and Designer of Vogelle

Humble beginnings

Selling handbags was not Vogel’s first foray into the fashion world. It all started at a Walgreens in Highlands Ranch.

The then-13-year-old was shopping for a birthday card when a modeling agent approached her. This chance encounter led Vogel to work on fashion shoots through high school, even graduating a semester early to spend a few months modeling in Mexico City.

Modeling allowed Vogel to be a “fly on the wall” during high-level business meetings, which sparked her interest in entrepreneurship.

“I was listening to all this language and jargon and strategy,” she said. “Being at fashion shows and photo shoots and seeing how different people from around the world weren't in nine-to-fives but were freelancers running their own businesses or fashion designers exposed me to a lot of different ways of working.”

The skills to succeed

At first, Vogel didn’t think her modeling experience would translate to a resume. But when she came to Leeds, a career advisor encouraged her to embrace the self-promotion, branding and interviewing skills she had developed as a model.

“It was really validating to have a Leeds career advisor tell me that [modeling] was more than just taking pictures,” she said.

Vogel credits her Leeds education—especially the finance classes—with giving her the tools necessary to start her own business. Her time at Leeds gave her important connections, too. Through the Leeds Professional Mentorship Program, she met , a buyer for Nordstrom who recommended that she work at the department store.

“I think that helped me see how certain brands appeal to every customer and that less really is more,” she said. “That was a big eye-opening experience for me.”

Made in Italy

A First-Year Global Experience trip to Milan changed the trajectory of Vogel’s career. It was Vogel’s first time in Europe, and the class focused on “made in Italy” brands. Although she “wasn’t obsessed” with handbags beforehand, she took note of the shoulder bags Milanese women wore—which later inspired Vogelle’s signature design.

“When you travel through Italy, there's a leather goods store on every block,” she said. “I found myself going in all the stores and touching everything and asking questions and looking at what the other women were wearing.”

In Vogel’s junior year, she returned to Milan for a semester abroad at Bocconi University and met a leather goods manufacturer. Now all she needed was a product.

Because Vogel had never designed a handbag before, she dissected cheap bags to draw the first Vogelle prototype. From the UPS on The Hill in Boulder, she sent her Italian manufacturer her first sketch, along with some scraps of the cut-up bags.

After revising her initial prototype, Vogel was at a crossroads: Should she wipe out her $4,000 savings to produce an order of Vogelle bags? She showed her prototype to Associate Teaching Professor Bob Donchez and asked for his advice.

“Bob said, ‘Well, you won't know if you don't try, and honestly, that's not money that's gonna ruin your life,’” she remembered. “‘You know that amount, even though it feels like it, it's not going to sink all your ships.’”

She placed the order, and Vogelle became a reality.

Looking ahead

In the future, Vogel hopes to expand Vogelle and possibly venture into other leather products. For now, she’s excited to keep growing her brand.

“It has this adventure piece to it, and this travel curiosity piece to it because for me everything that I have done in my life to grow has come from traveling solo, indulging in cultures and meeting the locals,” she said. 

“I really want it to have this travel piece to it but still always remain high-quality made in Italy.”