The LANA MARKS brand offers the ultimate fashion experience in sophisticated elegance. The Collections are available in 150 styles in 100 colours of alligator, crocodile, ostrich and lizard.
Lana J. Marks operates out of her international headquarters in Palm Beach, FL, USA. Lana J. Marks creates function in architectural form. "When someone chooses one of my handbags, they are making an investment in fashion, quality and practicality … most important, my handbags succeed in fulfilling the specifics of my customers' lifestyles."
LANA MARKS handbags are handcrafted in Italy. They are recognizable for their fusion of form, beauty and function. LANA MARKS handbags are fashion forward, setting the pace for design with an edge.
In designing her handbag Collections, Lana J. Marks combines architectural and sculptural lines with breathtaking colours and richly textured exotic leathers. Lana J. Marks creates fashion initiative, complemented by practicality, and also designs belts, shoes and ready-to-wear fashions.
Nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in “The Changeling,” Angelina Jolie wore a haute couture LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch on the 2009 Academy Awards Red Carpet.
Lana J. Marks has only designed one bespoke LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch per year for one actress to carry down the Academy Awards Red Carpet. Each Cleopatra Clutch designed for the Red Carpet is an original, with exacting production taking place in several countries.
Julie Christie wore the LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch in 2008; in 2007, Academy Award Winner Helen Mirren wore a LANA MARKS “Queen” Cleopatra Clutch on the Red Carpet and to the podium to accept her award; in 2006, Jennifer Aniston; in 2005, Best Actress Nominee Kate Winslet carried a LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch; and in 2004, Best Actress Winner Charlize Theron wore a LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch. Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Oprah Winfrey, Julianne Moore, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Sevigny, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, are just a few of her well-known customers.
No wonder it takes a flush pocketbook to bag one of these babies - $8,875 for a red alligator clutch or $17,950 for a fuchsia tote, for example.
The bags are handcrafted in Italy, but Lana Marks is headquartered in Palm Beach, where the designer lives and where she has a shop on Worth Avenue.
Over the past several years, Marks has developed relationships with actresses and their stylists, who've requested her custom-designed Cleopatra clutches.
"The Charlize Theron Cleo is very sleek, with tiny, smooth, pavé diamonds, and it's accented by black diamonds which had just become in vogue at that time. It complemented her entire appearance and what she was trying to achieve: a look of Old World glamour."
"For Jennifer Aniston, I was asked to create a clean-looking Cleopatra clutch, and was so incredibly delighted, as she's one of the icons and darlings of America. It was a clean look with a gold frame and perfectly complemented her gown."
"The fabric was silk shantung, with matching leather in the gusset, and the purse was made by an artisan in Italy who had never made a fabric handbag before."
Nominated for her work in "The Queen," Helen Mirren wore a haute couture $250,000 LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch at the 2007 Academy Awards Red Carpet. For the first time in recent memory, Helen Mirren, the winner of the Best Actress Academy Award has worn her handbag up to the stage to accept her Oscar. Helen Mirren wore her LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch up to the stage to accept her 2007 Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen".
The LANA MARKS Cleopatra Clutch, an Art Nouveau creation -- designed by Lana J. Marks -- has 776 individually cut and set diamonds on an 18k yellow gold frame and was inspired by a royal tiara, incorporating scrolls, garlands, and collets with a coronation inspired crown -- a good luck charm for Mirren -- delicately placed in the front of this cream alligator handbag, taking a month to produce in four countries.
She launched her first handbag in the US in the late '80s with the hot-pink Lana Marks Alligator Lunchbox. Fast forward almost 20 years and the woman in the red and purple outfit is one of the world's most sought-after luxury handbag designers. Her bags not only maketh the outfit, they maketh people gasp.
With some costing as much as $250,000, this is not an accessory to be taken lightly.
The majority of Marks's clutches and totes are made from American alligator, with others crafted from a range of species including Australian and New Guinea crocodiles.
Whether it is their rarity or the diamonds and jewels that embellish them, one thing is certain: a Lana Marks bag is a fashion accessory favoured by the world's rich and famous. The enviable Cleopatra Clutch, decorated with diamonds and inspired by Hollywood royal Elizabeth Taylor, is a handbag of choice for the Academy Awards, for example.
Then there was the customer in Hong Kong who had a particularly beautiful sapphire-and-diamond necklace collection, and so ordered a bespoke Cleopatra Clutch with blue sapphires and diamonds to match, no expense spared.
"It's these bespoke creations," says Marks, "that allow people to really go to town and create something ultra-luxurious and one of a kind. Those bags won't be seen on anyone else anywhere else, and one day they will be a collector's piece, like a Faberge jewelled egg."
No client list is complete without the royal touch, of course. Legend has it that when princess Diana saw a Lana Marks bag for the first time with its elongated top handle, she said it was long and slim like her.
"I have told staff in all my stores that if a royal walks in, or security, the Secret Service, just call me and put me in touch, because there is nothing like the personal approach," Marks says. "A couple of months ago I got a call from my team in New York telling me the Secret Service were in the store escorting the royal family of Thailand, (who) came with all the security and entourage. We have this quite often. Sometimes when I've travelled I've missed the Barbra Streisands of the world, missed the Madonnas of the world, I just wish I could be in two places at once.
"With Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, she came in with her mother Chantal Miller, who lived in New York, and literally just walked into the store. With princess Diana, the store sent an invitation to Lucia Flecha de Lima, wife of Brazil's then ambassador in Washington, and she came in the next day with (her) close friend princess Diana. It was astounding."
In Dubai after a trip climbing the mountains in Rwanda with her husband, Marks stands in front of the silver and glass cases protecting seven Cleopatra Clutches, worth a total of $1million. There is security at the door and each exit point and we're told this is nothing compared with the rigmarole involved in flying these bags across the world. A Customs nightmare.
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