Her own bag: model Camila Alves crafts luxe leather handbags

Matthew McConaughey wasn’t the only one in his household hard at work while he was in New Orleans recently shooting the movie, “Killer Joe.” Camila Alves Brazilian model Camila Alves, McConaughey’s girlfriend and the mother of his two children, held a trunk show here to introduce her handbag line, Muxo, to the local fashion scene. The event packed a Champagne-sipping crowd into the tiny upstairs showroom of Designer Social, the handbag and accessories shop above Scriptura on Magazine Street. Alves started designing handbags about five years ago with her mother, who has a background in fashion and interior design. The leather bags have a polished tribal feel, from the hand-cut fringe and pinwheel-like flower appliques to cryptic symbols, whipstitching and distressing. The look is “Gossip Girl” meets Pocahontas. Alves, who’s as charming as she is beautiful, moved from Brazil to Los Angeles when she was about 16. She spent her first few years in the United States cleaning houses and waiting tables before her modeling career took off. By 19, she was walking the runway for Carolina Herrera and posing in ads for Armani. “When I started modeling, I started to make money, and I began to think about ways that my mom and I could do something together,” Alves said. Traveling for her modeling gigs required a really good handbag, one that could stand up to the rigors of airplanes, hotels, cabs and backstage craziness. “Every handbag I had would break or fall apart,” she said. “The ones that did stay together, the label handbags, everybody else would have it.” So Alves and her mom came up with their own design. “People started asking where I got it,” she said. “We started making them out of our garage. We couldn’t hammer in the middle of night, so we put everything in our car and would drive to a parking lot so we could hammer without bothering anyone.” The line now features more than 60 clutches, totes, shoulder bags and satchels. “We still touch every single bag,” she said. “We do the distressing. We don’t teach that to anybody, and you can’t machine copy it.” The bags range from $212 for a small, casual shoulder bag to $1,800 for a large fringe statement piece. Alves spent two months in New Orleans this fall while McConaughey was working on the film. She said the whole family was charmed by the city. And though they have two small children in tow these days — son Levi is 2 years old and daughter Vida just turned 1 — Alves says she’s not slowing down. “I grew up with my parents working for a living, and I never plan to stop working myself,” she said.