Angelica Cheung (Editor-in-Chief, Vogue China)

 ‘A red dress my mother made for me when I was a teenager. I haven’t worn it in over 20 years, but I will always keep it.’

Tory Burch (Designer, New York Fashion Week)

 ‘A sunflower pendant my father had made for his mother.’

Sarah Rutson (Vice President, Global Buying at Net-a-Porter)

‘It’s a family signet ring, a very large signet ring which was unusual for a woman, it comes from about 1720, so it was a great great great great grandmother, and she was a very bold dresser’

Anna Dello Russo (creative consultant, Vogue Japan)

‘I collect clothes…it’s not about this piece, another piece…all of them are a treasury. It’s an entire collection…’

Mary Katrantzou (Designer, London fashion week)

‘I’d say my Alaia dress. It has really intricate embroidery in it, and comes out for very very special events. I only wore it to see the Queen and to the British Fashion Awards. And a pair of Miu Miu earring’

Jenna Lyons (Creative Director and President, J Crew)

‘My ten-year-old Okura jeans’

Aerin Lauder (Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Estee Lauder)

‘My Tiffany gold wedding band’

Photo courtesy of businessoffashion.com, Noah Griffel, Vogue

In the throes of Fashion week, we asked our KOTUR Fashion MUSES the most important question any handbag designer must be able to address… What do you never leave home without… Here are our answers, and yes, they all fit into KOTUR

Sarah Rutson (Vice President, Global Buying at Net-a-Porter)

‘Wearing scent. Perfume is very important to me, which is why I’ve got a very large nose – for a reason. I never leave home without wearing my perfume which is one of 3 brands: Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin, the other is Bulgari and Clarins in the red bottle. I never walk out of the house without scent on – I feel naked’

Jenna Lyons (Creative Director and President, J Crew) 

‘My 1969 Gold Rolex’

Cornelia Guest (Handbag designer and Animal Advocate)

‘My Amex Card’

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No slavish follower of runway fads, British-born Sarah makes her wardrobe of Alaia classics and timeless biker jackets work hard for her, whether at home in Hong Kong or jet-setting the international front rows.

Her friends call her a magician, but I like to think of her as more of a technician, piecing together components to create a masterpiece.

As you would expect from the fashion director for the Lane Crawford group of department stores in Asia, her product knowledge is encyclopedic, with the contents of her make-up bag reeled off without hesitation and with full specification – brand, shade and size.

A curator of fashion, Sarah is master. She also offers unexpected revelations about her addiction to cheap chocolate, her knitting habit, and her weakness for all creatures great and small…

KOTUR: What’s in your make-up bag?
Sarah: Oh that’s simple. I’m very minimal on makeup. I wear very little – I never wear mascara, ever. Clue de peu foundation, Mac blusher, I wear a Chanel nude lipstick and I wear Giorgio Armani eyeshadow

KOTUR: Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
Sarah: Yes – I have to say the bag I use the most is an Hermes clutch. I use it for evening and for day. When I’m on a business trip, I have a car 24/7, so the car becomes my office where I keep files and everything. I don’t want them ruining my handbag or ruining my back.

KOTUR: Do you have a beauty secret?
Sarah: Yesterday I bought my first bottle of La Prairie Caviar Luxe cream. I’m literally on day 1, and by day 30 I expect to look… oooh… 35?

KOTUR: How would your female friends describe your style?
Sarah: Very eclectic, but mostly they’re shocked because I’ve got fewer clothes than any of my friends have – they call me a magician. I have a very strict wardrobe – I’m the expert at mixing and matching… it never looks like I wear anything twice.

KOTUR: What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?
Sarah: It’s a family signet ring, a very large signet ring which was unusual for a woman, it comes from about 1720, so it was a great great great great grandmother, and she was a very bold dresser.

KOTUR: Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?
Sarah: Never – everything I have in my wardrobe I wear. My wardrobe works very, very hard for me. I tend to buy the same thing in a couple of colors. The biker jacket, for example, has been in my wardrobe for 30 odd years, but I can always find an excuse to buy another one – the weight of it, the color, the cut, the proportion…

KOTUR: What do you never leave home without?
Sarah: Wearing scent. Perfume is very important to me, which is why I’ve got a very large nose – for a reason. I never leave home without wearing my perfume which is one of 3 brands: Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin, the other is Bulgari and Clarins in the red bottle. I never walk out of the house with out scent on – I feel naked.

KOTUR: Have you ever worn anything you are now embarrassed by?
Sarah: I think my hair embarrassed me, looking back, at the 80s with that curly perm, the whole Flashdance thing. I certainly look at that 80’s perm Bananarama thing going on with the mousse, and it’s pretty terrifying…

KOTUR: How high is too high a heel?
Sarah: Oh no such thing, but I will never be uncomfortable. Anna Dello Russo said fashion should be uncomfortable, but I am in the school that absolutely anything I wear that if I have to fiddle with it, or if I’m mincing around in pain, it’s just not going to happen.

KOTUR: How old is too old for jeans?
Sarah: Never, never. My mother is 80 and unbelievably chic, she is my style icon. The chicest woman you will ever know, beautiful, beautiful woman – she’s very much like the Duchess of Devonshire, she’s a very tall and regal woman, she wears jeans. We went out and bought a pair of J Brand dark, dark blue jeans and she looks incredible in them.

KOTUR: What is your most recent purchase?
Sarah: Very easy… yet another Alaia dress. My first independent purchase, with my first salary at 17 was an Alaia dress. I saved up and went to Paris. Absolutely I still have it and wear it. It’s the one brand and time when I never ever look at a price tag, because it is irrelevant to me in that respect – it defies trend, it defies season, it defies anything you would normally question “should I pay this much for this or that?” because I’ve never, never not worn my Alaias to death…

KOTUR: Can you judge a book by its cover?
Sarah: Never, but I am an extremely good judge of character. I guess it’s because my grandmother was a psychic, and it’s something I’m never wrong on…

KOTUR: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Sarah: My greatest extravagance, I suppose, is my inability to say no to an animal in distress. Every year, there are more animals in my house – literally we now have 2 dogs, 5 cats, and I lavish my mutts…

KOTUR: Do you have a cheap thrill?
Sarah: When I say I like chocolate, I only like cheap chocolate…Cadbury’s.

KOTUR: Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?
Sarah: A really loved dog! A dog in a family that is really crazy about me, because that would be a fabulous life…

KOTUR: Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
Sarah: I’m a no to Botox, but will I have surgery… hell yes!

KOTUR: What part of your body would you like to change?
Sarah: I would like straight hair that I don’t have to blow-dry.

KOTUR: Do you have a favorite Kotur bag?
Sarah: Yes, it’s my feathers… it’s really so chic. Again, because I’m so understated in a lot of the things I wear, I love a clutch bag and people say ‘ooh where did you get that?’ and it’s always in my bag in every trip.

KOTUR: On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?
Um… I’m not good looking, I stand out in a crowd – people remember me. I’m not a classic beauty, I’m different… and how do you rate that?