CRAFTSMANSHIP MATTERS
At Silver & Riley, we believe true luxury begins with exceptional craftsmanship. Our collections are created with exceptional materials, disciplined construction and a meticulous attention to detail, balancing beauty with the functionality required for real life.
We work with skilled artisans in Italy whose expertise reflects generations of leather-working tradition. From the selection of each hide to the structure, stitching, hardware and finishing, every detail is considered with intention.
The result is something increasingly rare: beautifully made products designed not simply to be admired, but to be used, loved and carried for years.
BEAUTIFUL. FUNCTIONAL. UNCOMPROMISING.
If you expect your bag to do more than sit beautifully on a table, you will feel at home here. Our clients move through airports, boardrooms, school runs, late dinners and early flights. Style matters, but so do function, organization and reliability.
We design with that reality in mind: how a bag feels when carried, how easily you can find what you need, whether it maintains its structure, where the pockets should sit, how much it can hold and how it performs after years of use.
We believe exceptional design should make life more beautiful without making it more complicated.
AS SEEN IN
THE SILVER & RILEY STANDARD
Exceptional craftsmanship begins with exceptional materials. We select each material according to the demands of the design: full-grain calfskin for its softness and beautiful evolution over time, cowhide for its strength and structure, and Saffiano leather for its durability and distinctive texture. Our silks are produced in Como, Italy, a region renowned for some of the world's finest silk craftsmanship.
Every detail of construction is considered with equal care, from the weight and structure of the leather to the placement of pockets, strength of handles, quality of hardware, precision of stitching and finishing. We work with skilled artisans and carefully selected manufacturing partners in Italy and Spain who meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship, quality, sustainability and transparency.
Our partners hold internationally recognized certifications, including Leather Working Group Gold Certification and the OEKO-TEX Leather Standard. The result is a product designed to be beautiful on the first day and worthy of years of use.
THE ORIGIN
BRAND STORY
The idea behind Silver & Riley began nearly a decade before the company launched.
In 2010, while in business school and traveling for a summer internship, Lola asked for a blanket on a freezing flight and was told that blankets were reserved only for passengers in first class. Frustrated by the experience, she began thinking about creating a travel goods company that would make journeys more comfortable.
Over the years that followed, she traveled extensively and paid close attention to how people moved through the world: what they carried, the frustrations they encountered and the tradeoffs they made between products that were functional and those that were beautifully designed. As she researched the travel and accessories industries, the original concept evolved from travel essentials into a broader vision for exceptionally made leather goods that could bring beauty and function together.
A conversation with Warren Buffett also expanded her sense of what was possible. His encouragement pushed her to envision building a global brand.
By 2018, she was ready to turn years of research and observation into a company. She began developing the first designs and searching for manufacturing partners. She had no fashion background, no connections and no introductions to the Italian factories she wanted to work with.
After factory visits across Italy, prototypes, countless conversations, 136 rejections and nearly a year of refusing to compromise, Silver & Riley was born.
The First Email
JUL 2018
Before there was Silver & Riley, there was an idea, and an enormous amount Lola had to figure out for herself.
On July 22, 2018, she sent her first email to a prospective manufacturing partner. She was looking for someone who could produce a leather duffle bag using exceptional materials and construction, with the level of craftsmanship she envisioned for Silver & Riley. No one responded.
Lola had never manufactured a commercial product before, had no relationships in the fashion industry and knew no one who could introduce her to an Italian factory. There was no sourcing agent, production team or network of industry contacts to call. And this was well before AI.
She did all the research herself, learned about leather, construction and manufacturing, combed through Italian business directories and the Italian Yellow Pages, tracked down factories one by one, and called and emailed manufacturers across Italy. Emails went unanswered. Calls were difficult to navigate across a language barrier. Some factories weren't interested in working with a new brand with no production history. Others simply hung up on her. But she kept calling.
Every conversation, and every rejection, taught her more about how the industry worked, what questions to ask, what distinguished one manufacturer from another and what it would take to produce the kind of product she had envisioned.
That unanswered email was the first of many attempts to find someone willing to take a chance on an unknown founder with an ambitious idea. It would take months, a trip to Italy and far more rejection before anyone finally said yes.
The Rejection Tour
NOV 2018
Four months later, Lola flew to Italy determined to find a factory in person. She had been to Italy many times before, but never like this. For two weeks, she traveled from factory to factory with drawings, ideas and a growing realization of just how much she still had to learn about manufacturing leather goods.
She visited 14 factories in total. Some meetings had been arranged in advance; for others, she showed up and hoped someone would speak with her. The first week was an utter failure. She wasn't always asking the right questions, navigating technical conversations without speaking Italian was difficult, and being a first-time founder without meaningful production volumes made an already challenging process even harder.
By the second week, Lola hired a translator to accompany her to meetings, and conversations became a little more productive. She could ask better questions, understand what factories needed from her and begin to see where her own plans needed to become more specific. But the outcome was ultimately the same: after two weeks, 14 factories and a lot of rejection, she returned to New York without a manufacturing partner.
The trip had been unsuccessful by almost every obvious measure. But each rejection gave her more information. She went back to her business plan, refined what she was asking manufacturers to produce, learned more about the economics and realities of production, and became much clearer about what Silver & Riley needed from a factory.
The First Production
SEP/OCT 2019
It would take almost a full year after that first factory trip for the first Silver & Riley production run to become a reality.
Over the months that followed, Lola continued developing prototypes, refining drawings, strengthening the business plan and learning the intricacies of luxury leather goods production. She contacted factory after factory, and the rejections continued to pile up, reaching 136 in total. Some manufacturers weren't interested in working with a new brand. Others required production volumes she couldn't yet commit to.
Building Silver & Riley became all-consuming. She deactivated her social media accounts and immersed herself completely in the company, spending her time researching, designing, speaking with manufacturers and working through each new challenge as it arose.
Eventually, someone said yes and in September 2019, after nearly a year of searching for the right partners and refusing to lower the standard simply to get something made, the first Silver & Riley production run was completed in Naples, Italy. For the first time, what had existed as drawings, prototypes and an idea Lola had been carrying for years was now a collection of finished leather goods made by Italian craftspeople.
One month later, Silver & Riley celebrated its official launch with an intimate gathering of family, friends, editors and stylists in New York City. It was the first time the collection was introduced outside the small circle involved in bringing it to life, and several guests became Silver & Riley's very first customers that night.
The following week, the website went live. Silver & Riley launched to the world.
The First Buy 1, Give 5 Grants
MARCH 2020
Supporting women entrepreneurs was part of the vision for Silver & Riley from the very beginning. When the company launched, so did Buy 1, Give 5, an initiative dedicating 5% of sales to helping women entrepreneurs build and grow businesses of their own. Lola had grown up watching her mother build businesses and understood both the independence entrepreneurship could create and how difficult it could be to access the resources needed to grow.
The first grant cycle drew nearly 150 applicants. A nine-person panel reviewed the applications and interviewed the finalists before selecting three businesses for the inaugural grants: JAM + RICO, Girls Going Global and Embracing The Crown.
The grants were awarded in March 2020, just as COVID-19 began shutting down businesses and creating enormous uncertainty around the world. Silver & Riley was only five months old and navigating the same uncertainty, but supporting other entrepreneurs remained an important part of what the company had been created to do. The three grants were awarded as planned, providing funding to women building businesses of their own at a moment when access to capital and support had become even more consequential.
Those inaugural grants established a commitment that has continued alongside Silver & Riley's own growth. The Buy 1, Give 5 program remains one of the company's longest-standing initiatives and a reflection of the belief that building a successful company can also help create opportunities for others.
NYFW DeBut
Feb 2024
In February 2024, Silver & Riley made its New York Fashion Week debut as one of nine designers selected for the Black in Fashion Council Discovery Showrooms, presented by Rakuten. The five-day showcase brought together emerging designers from around the world and gave Silver & Riley its own showroom at High Line Nine in Manhattan, where editors, stylists, buyers and other members of the fashion industry could experience the collection in person.
For a brand that had begun with Lola trying to convince factories to take a chance on her, seeing Silver & Riley on the official NYFW schedule alongside some of the most established names in American fashion marked a significant moment in the company's journey. The week introduced the brand to a much broader fashion audience and created opportunities for conversations and relationships across the industry.
It was the brand’s first official NYFW presentation and brought a new level of industry visibility. Silver & Riley appeared on the NYFW calendar, was covered by Vogue as part of the season’s Discovery Showrooms, and caught the attention of Who What Wear, whose editors singled out the brand’s polished handbags among their favorite discoveries of the week.
It was Silver & Riley's first official presentation during New York Fashion Week, and a milestone that placed the brand on one of fashion's most visible stages.
Silver & Riley today
2026+
Seven years after launch, Silver & Riley has grown from an idea and a first production run in Italy into an independent luxury house that has served clients in 27 countries and counting.
Our collections now span handbags, work bags, travel bags, silk scarves and accessories, with each new design building on the same belief that started the company: beautiful products should be exceptionally made, thoughtfully designed and genuinely useful. Along the way, Silver & Riley has established retail partnerships with Nordstrom, Saks and Macy’s / Bloomingdale's, made its NYFW debut and built a community of clients whose loyalty continues to humble us. More than half of our clients return to purchase again, and some now own ten or more Silver & Riley bags.
As the company has grown, the convictions behind it have remained the same. We still obsess over materials, construction and the smallest design details. We still believe function should never require a compromise in beauty. We still work with skilled craftspeople to create products intended to be enjoyed for years. And through Buy 1, Give 5, the growth of Silver & Riley continues to support women building businesses of their own, with an ambition to support 1,000 women entrepreneurs by 2030.
What began with 136 rejections and a determination to build something exceptional has grown into a community that we could only have imagined in those early years. There is still so much we want to create, so many places we want to go and so much more we want Silver & Riley to become.
We’re just getting started.
THE ORIGIN
BRAND STORY
The idea behind Silver & Riley began nearly a decade before the company launched.
In 2010, while in business school and traveling for a summer internship, Lola asked for a blanket on a freezing flight and was told that blankets were reserved only for passengers in first class. Frustrated by the experience, she began thinking about creating a travel goods company that would make journeys more comfortable.
Over the years that followed, she traveled extensively and paid close attention to how people moved through the world: what they carried, the frustrations they encountered and the tradeoffs they made between products that were functional and those that were beautifully designed. As she researched the travel and accessories industries, the original concept evolved from travel essentials into a broader vision for exceptionally made leather goods that could bring beauty and function together.
A conversation with Warren Buffett also expanded her sense of what was possible. His encouragement pushed her to envision building a global brand.
By 2018, she was ready to turn years of research and observation into a company. She began developing the first designs and searching for manufacturing partners. She had no fashion background, no connections and no introductions to the Italian factories she wanted to work with.
After factory visits across Italy, prototypes, countless conversations, 136 rejections and nearly a year of refusing to compromise, Silver & Riley was born.
The First Email
JUL 2018
Before there was Silver & Riley, there was an idea, and an enormous amount Lola had to figure out for herself.
On July 22, 2018, she sent her first email to a prospective manufacturing partner. She was looking for someone who could produce a leather duffle bag using exceptional materials and construction, with the level of craftsmanship she envisioned for Silver & Riley. No one responded.
Lola had never manufactured a commercial product before, had no relationships in the fashion industry and knew no one who could introduce her to an Italian factory. There was no sourcing agent, production team or network of industry contacts to call. And this was well before AI.
She did all the research herself, learned about leather, construction and manufacturing, combed through Italian business directories and the Italian Yellow Pages, tracked down factories one by one, and called and emailed manufacturers across Italy. Emails went unanswered. Calls were difficult to navigate across a language barrier. Some factories weren't interested in working with a new brand with no production history. Others simply hung up on her. But she kept calling.
Every conversation, and every rejection, taught her more about how the industry worked, what questions to ask, what distinguished one manufacturer from another and what it would take to produce the kind of product she had envisioned.
That unanswered email was the first of many attempts to find someone willing to take a chance on an unknown founder with an ambitious idea. It would take months, a trip to Italy and far more rejection before anyone finally said yes.
The Rejection Tour
NOV 2018
Four months later, Lola flew to Italy determined to find a factory in person. She had been to Italy many times before, but never like this. For two weeks, she traveled from factory to factory with drawings, ideas and a growing realization of just how much she still had to learn about manufacturing leather goods.
She visited 14 factories in total. Some meetings had been arranged in advance; for others, she showed up and hoped someone would speak with her. The first week was an utter failure. She wasn't always asking the right questions, navigating technical conversations without speaking Italian was difficult, and being a first-time founder without meaningful production volumes made an already challenging process even harder.
By the second week, Lola hired a translator to accompany her to meetings, and conversations became a little more productive. She could ask better questions, understand what factories needed from her and begin to see where her own plans needed to become more specific. But the outcome was ultimately the same: after two weeks, 14 factories and a lot of rejection, she returned to New York without a manufacturing partner.
The trip had been unsuccessful by almost every obvious measure. But each rejection gave her more information. She went back to her business plan, refined what she was asking manufacturers to produce, learned more about the economics and realities of production, and became much clearer about what Silver & Riley needed from a factory.
The First Production
SEP/OCT 2019
It would take almost a full year after that first factory trip for the first Silver & Riley production run to become a reality.
Over the months that followed, Lola continued developing prototypes, refining drawings, strengthening the business plan and learning the intricacies of luxury leather goods production. She contacted factory after factory, and the rejections continued to pile up, reaching 136 in total. Some manufacturers weren't interested in working with a new brand. Others required production volumes she couldn't yet commit to.
Building Silver & Riley became all-consuming. She deactivated her social media accounts and immersed herself completely in the company, spending her time researching, designing, speaking with manufacturers and working through each new challenge as it arose.
Eventually, someone said yes and in September 2019, after nearly a year of searching for the right partners and refusing to lower the standard simply to get something made, the first Silver & Riley production run was completed in Naples, Italy. For the first time, what had existed as drawings, prototypes and an idea Lola had been carrying for years was now a collection of finished leather goods made by Italian craftspeople.
One month later, Silver & Riley celebrated its official launch with an intimate gathering of family, friends, editors and stylists in New York City. It was the first time the collection was introduced outside the small circle involved in bringing it to life, and several guests became Silver & Riley's very first customers that night.
The following week, the website went live. Silver & Riley launched to the world.
The First Buy 1, Give 5 Grants
MARCH 2020
Supporting women entrepreneurs was part of the vision for Silver & Riley from the very beginning. When the company launched, so did Buy 1, Give 5, an initiative dedicating 5% of sales to helping women entrepreneurs build and grow businesses of their own. Lola had grown up watching her mother build businesses and understood both the independence entrepreneurship could create and how difficult it could be to access the resources needed to grow.
The first grant cycle drew nearly 150 applicants. A nine-person panel reviewed the applications and interviewed the finalists before selecting three businesses for the inaugural grants: JAM + RICO, Girls Going Global and Embracing The Crown.
The grants were awarded in March 2020, just as COVID-19 began shutting down businesses and creating enormous uncertainty around the world. Silver & Riley was only five months old and navigating the same uncertainty, but supporting other entrepreneurs remained an important part of what the company had been created to do. The three grants were awarded as planned, providing funding to women building businesses of their own at a moment when access to capital and support had become even more consequential.
Those inaugural grants established a commitment that has continued alongside Silver & Riley's own growth. The Buy 1, Give 5 program remains one of the company's longest-standing initiatives and a reflection of the belief that building a successful company can also help create opportunities for others.
NYFW DeBut
Feb 2024
In February 2024, Silver & Riley made its New York Fashion Week debut as one of nine designers selected for the Black in Fashion Council Discovery Showrooms, presented by Rakuten. The five-day showcase brought together emerging designers from around the world and gave Silver & Riley its own showroom at High Line Nine in Manhattan, where editors, stylists, buyers and other members of the fashion industry could experience the collection in person.
For a brand that had begun with Lola trying to convince factories to take a chance on her, seeing Silver & Riley on the official NYFW schedule alongside some of the most established names in American fashion marked a significant moment in the company's journey. The week introduced the brand to a much broader fashion audience and created opportunities for conversations and relationships across the industry.
It was the brand’s first official NYFW presentation and brought a new level of industry visibility. Silver & Riley appeared on the NYFW calendar, was covered by Vogue as part of the season’s Discovery Showrooms, and caught the attention of Who What Wear, whose editors singled out the brand’s polished handbags among their favorite discoveries of the week.
It was Silver & Riley's first official presentation during New York Fashion Week, and a milestone that placed the brand on one of fashion's most visible stages.
Silver & Riley today
2026+
Seven years after launch, Silver & Riley has grown from an idea and a first production run in Italy into an independent luxury house that has served clients in 27 countries and counting.
Our collections now span handbags, work bags, travel bags, silk scarves and accessories, with each new design building on the same belief that started the company: beautiful products should be exceptionally made, thoughtfully designed and genuinely useful. Along the way, Silver & Riley has established retail partnerships with Nordstrom, Saks and Macy’s / Bloomingdale's, made its NYFW debut and built a community of clients whose loyalty continues to humble us. More than half of our clients return to purchase again, and some now own ten or more Silver & Riley bags.
As the company has grown, the convictions behind it have remained the same. We still obsess over materials, construction and the smallest design details. We still believe function should never require a compromise in beauty. We still work with skilled craftspeople to create products intended to be enjoyed for years. And through Buy 1, Give 5, the growth of Silver & Riley continues to support women building businesses of their own, with an ambition to support 1,000 women entrepreneurs by 2030.
What began with 136 rejections and a determination to build something exceptional has grown into a community that we could only have imagined in those early years. There is still so much we want to create, so many places we want to go and so much more we want Silver & Riley to become.
We’re just getting started.
Buy 1, Give 5: Empowering Women
We award 5% of all sales to women entrepreneurs both in the U.S. and in emerging economies, with the ambitious goal of supporting 1,000 women entrepreneurs by 2030.
The Buy 1, Give 5 program is our hallmark program supporting women entrepreneurs as they start, grow, and scale their businesses.
Women, especially those from underrepresented groups, often encounter significant hurdles in business due to systemic economic and income inequalities, which can severely limit their ability to start, scale, and grow their businesses. We understand these challenges firsthand, which is why this program is so critical to our mission.
Through Buy 1, Give 5, we aim to empower women entrepreneurs across a range of industries. We launched the program at the very start of Silver & Riley and have awarded grants ever since, with funding totaling up to $10,000 per cycle.
You can feel great knowing that not only are you purchasing a quality product, you’re also helping to potentially close the opportunity gap for women entrepreneurs.
_______
About the Founder and Designer
Hi, I’m Lola, and I’m so grateful you’re here. Silver & Riley is my life’s passion, and I’m thankful every day to do this work. Getting here has been quite a journey. With no manufacturing connections or funding, I spent a year knocking on doors in Italy and faced 136 rejections before aligning with my first partner factory. But I was determined. Silver & Riley was built from the ground up, completely self-funded, and every step of the way has deepened my appreciation for this business.
My motivation to start the brand, however, began much earlier in life. Growing up between Brownsville, Brooklyn and Agege, Lagos, I witnessed the weight of poverty and inequality firsthand, experiences that shaped my worldview and rooted in me a deep commitment to purpose. I made a vow early In life to honor every opportunity I'm afforded, to live with intention, and to use my work in service of something greater.
Silver & Riley is the embodiment of that promise; a brand built on resilience, possibility, and the belief that business can be a force for good. It reflects my desire to leave the world better than I found it, and to use my gifts to create lasting, positive impact. Through programs like the Buy 1, Give 5 program and our community food drives, we’re dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs and lending a helping hand where we can.
My experiences as a global citizen traveling across more than 100 countries, combined with my education in engineering, mathematics, and business, and my late mother’s love for fashion, inspire the high-quality products we create today.
Before dedicating myself fully to Silver & Riley, I led a successful corporate career as a Strategy Consulting Executive at Accenture and Deloitte, and later as VP of Strategy at Salesforce, where I was also Global President of the firm’s Black ERG, a 10,000-member community of Black professionals and allies worldwide.
Outside of Silver & Riley, I’m passionate about education, economic empowerment, diversity and inclusion, and women’s rights. When I’m not working, you can find me enjoying photography, cheering at sporting events, exploring car shows, or traveling to Liège, Belgium for the best waffles ever :)
What's in a name?
Silver & Riley honors my late mother, a skilled entrepreneur who ran several businesses including a jewelry business. She often adorned my siblings and I in beautiful gold pieces, but I preferred silver, inspiring her special nickname for me. Nearly two decades since her passing, the name Silver & Riley carries her memory and brand principles.
Her influence extends beyond the name as I apply the customer intimacy lessons I learned from her, striving to make each client feel valued and important. I truly consider our community family and always strive to go above and beyond to serve.
I hope you appreciate the passion, dedication, and care infused into every aspect of our brand. Thank you for choosing us!
xoxo, Lola and the Silver & Riley team
Recently viewed products
We Proudly showcase real people. No AI models, ever.
Silver & Riley is designed for real life. Every campaign and image features real people whose confidence and creativity reflect the ambition our products are crafted to support. We do not use AI models, now or ever. In an era of digital perfection, we proudly work with real people and celebrate the clients, creatives and supporters whose energy brings our brand to life.
