The Independent Handbag Designer Awards is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Emily Blumenthal, the founder of the Awards, has become a power player in the world of handbag design. She started the site Handbag Designer 101 and literally wrote a book on becoming a handbag designer. When Emily first began her career as a designer she saw that the “industry” itself had no hub and that designers were not being honored for their work. As handbags have risen to become the key component in most women’s wardrobes, Emily saw the opportunity to build The Independent Handbag Designer Awards and create a new niche for handbags that is now an industry standard. Fashion has countless awards but yet, until Emily, no one was focusing on handbags.

“Throughout these past eight years, I kind of became known as this handbag fairy godmother, taking these unknowns and putting them on this platform of discovery,” Emily said.

This year’s finalists come from all corners of the globe — and are competing in categories such the Lug Life Best Student Made Handbag, the BERNINA Best Handmade Handbag, the Trina Turk Best Resort Style Bag and the InStyle Audience Fan Favorite. This award will be chosen by fans online and has garnered more than 450,000 votes since the awards were started.

Emily’s awards have helped launched the careers of rising designers such as John Edwards of Florian London, Monica Frisbie of Mondrina, and Maria Lamanna of Italy. The 2016 awards will be held on June 15th at the School of Visual Arts Theatre in New York City and will honor celebrated designer MZ WALLACE with the 2016 IHDA ICONOCLAST Award, presented by Accessories Circuit.