The name Karenina comes from the tragic heroine in Leo Tolstoy’s eponymous novel, Anna Karenina. A beautiful, aristocratic married woman from St. Petersburg whose affair eventually threw her into social exile. Physically ravishing yet tastefully reserved, Anna’s seemingly cold appearance is only contrasted by her pursuit of love and emotional honesty. Karenina appreciates Anna’s complexity, her controversy. Her sense of style, as well as her innate desire to live in her own way, embody what Karenina would like to convey.

Karenina’s view on timeless elegance takes a modern clean approach to create refined, feminine, yet wearable silhouettes, accentuated by sophisticated details, and stresses the use of fine materials and heritage savoir-faire. The first bag collection plays with the idea of curved lines and consists of three styles, two variations of shoulder bags for all occasions and an everyday carry-all tote. They are produced in Florentine generationally owned workshop, and the materials come from select parts of Italy and France.