Special Post: Artist and Handbag and Accessories' Designer Angela Frascone

Bag by Angela Frascone featuring collage-style art. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum

Special Post: Artist and Handbag and Accessories Designer Angela Frascone

The word “vintage” can be subjective—most certainly based on the viewpoint of the person using it in conversation or referring to a collection. As a general rule, “antique” is that which is at least 100 years old, and “vintage” refers to collectibles that are 20 years or older. 

When The Vintage Purse Museum began acquiring more recently designated vintage handbags, we were struck by the bold, vivid and often whimsical designs of Angela Frascone (1952-2007). We planned to write an article about her and her fabulous art, but a comment left on one of our Facebook posts, featuring a Frascone bag in our collection, gave us the impetus to finally do so. The comment was left by Angela Frascone’s husband and business partner David Farmer.

Mr. Farmer kindly consented to an email interview, and answered our questions about Angela Frascone’s background and the couple’s handbag and accessories’ business.

Artist and fashion designer Angela Frascone with one of her bags. Photo courtesy of David Farmer.

Angela Frascone (pronounced fras-co-nee) was born in the Bronx, New York in 1952 to Robert Frascone (1930-2017) and Edith Minnecola Frascone (1931-2021). Angela had three siblings. 

Angela graduated from Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, New York. “Already an inspired painter,” Mr. Farmer wrote in an email, “(she) was accepted into the Fine Arts program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.” 

In her final year at SVA, she was invited to travel to France to create an installation at the Musee d'Art de Bordeaux. This led to an engagement with a French theatre company, Le Grand Magic Circus. It was there that she met her husband-to-be and business partner David Farmer, an Australia native who was in Paris studying fashion.

The pair returned to the US, married February 14, 1975 at City Hall in Manhattan, and moved to San Francisco, California.

Angela Frascone bag with original hangtag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

“Angela was an inveterate painter, inspired by Matisse and the Delaunays (Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay), and the Fauve Movement,” wrote Mr. Farmer. “She was also a photographer and dancer, and worked in an artists’ supply store for requisite income and, importantly, for discounts on artist’s supplies.”

01 Jul 1988, Fri The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com

In 1982, Angela started her first fashion accessories business, which produced unique belts. Her company was called Van Allen Belts until she changed it in 1986 to her eponymous brand, Angela Frascone Accessories. (Fun Facts: In science, a Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles. It was also the name of a Canadian alternative rock band in the 1990s, and a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based band in the 2000s.) 

Angela Frascone "submerged in water" look mini-bag with jeweled top, coordinating belt, and original care instructions. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

By 1987, Angela’s husband David had joined the company as her business partner. The pair expanded the line to include jewelry, scarves, shoes, hair ornaments, and handbags. Jewelry was the primary focus of the company in the early 1990s, with orders coming in from fashion-forward boutiques, as well as major stores such as Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, and Limited/Limited Express.

During the latter half of the 1990s, jewelry trends became more minimalist, so Angela Frascone’s handbags emerged as the company’s biggest seller. 03 Mar 2000, Fri The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, New Mexico) Newspapers.com

Angela Frascone mod motif drawstring bag with coordinating shoes. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The Vintage Purse Museum asked David Farmer to explain the creation process from Angela’s art to the handbag. He wrote: “Angela's design mandate was to take her original art and manipulate/process it into one-of-a-kind wearables. The original artwork comprised oil paintings, watercolors, monoprints, blockprints and mixed media collage. While Angela was a prolific painter and collage artist, the demands of production at scale required a new solution. So, the process was conceived of a limited number (usually 100) giclee* print run of each original painting/artwork. Advances in laser printing allowed for dynamic, paperless polymer printing of amazing color graphic (of the original painting), which was then perfectly suited for our polymer embedment process.” (*A giclee is an art print created by using a special type of printer.)

Angela Frascone’s style—which is abundantly reflected in her handbags—was intense color and graphic quality. Mr. Farmer told us that she was inspired by the original Chinese lacquer process.

Asian motif Angela Frascone bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

He wrote: “To this end we researched new state-of-the-art urethane polymers, which gave the desired ‘submerged-in-water’ look, while at the same time creating great wear characteristics. The handbag bodies were designed in San Francisco and originally made in New York City.”

Later, the company obtained Chinese production partners, with handbags constructed from microfiber and leather in Asia. Each handbag’s body was paired with Angela’s art, and assembly was completed at the factory in San Francisco. 

Angela Frascone multicolor poodle motif bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Label inside bag above. David Farmer told us that labels with white lettering and a black background were used through the 1990s. The gold label with black lettering and red label with silver lettering was used in the 2000s, and he recalls that the red labels appeared in the most recent designs, which were sold through 2008. 19 Mar 2003, Wed Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Newspapers.com

In 2000, the Home Shopping Network (HSN) partnered with Angela Frascone. (The Vintage Purse Museum reached out to HSN for comment for this article, but have not heard back at the time of this posting.) David Farmer shared with us that the couple greatly valued the partnership with HSN from a distribution and financial standpoint, and considered it a triumph for their business. Sadly, the 2005-2006 Bay Area floods, along with Angela’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and her subsequent death in 2007 at age 55, was when Angela Frascone Accessories closed its doors.

Angela Frascone’s contributions to the intertwining worlds of art and fashion are immeasurable, and her designs will forever epitomize the description of a handbag as “a portable work of art.”

We are extremely grateful to David Farmer for sharing Angela Frascone’s story. Other information was found on MyHeritage.com and Newspapers.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. This article c2023 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use information or photos from our website without permission, info@vintagepursemuseum.com.