RHONY’s Erin Lichy Recalls Losing Over $100K in Handbag Business

The Real Housewives of New York City’s Erin Lichy considers her previous handbag business to be a learning experience.

“I don’t look at it as a failure, but we lost a lot of money,” Lichy, 37, said on the Monday, January 20, episode of Jason Tartick’s “Trading Secrets” podcast. “Technically, it kind of failed.”

Lichy shared that she lost “upwards of over $100,000” from the venture. (The Bravo star later noted that she put “more” than $100,000 into the business, noting that was “probably” the starting amount.) “We just kept pouring money,” Lichy said.

In Lichy’s perspective, the fashion business is “impossible” unless you have a previous background in the industry or “are backed by someone big.”

“You get screwed on minimums in Asia, or if you’re making anywhere overseas, you get screwed on minimums. Then you start making it in New York, and you get screwed on, like, labor costs,” Lichy claimed. “It’s very difficult. We actually really believed in making things in New York and in, like, our studio. We were making them in China before, and I felt very uncomfortable by it for many reasons.”

Lichy recalled visiting factories, which she claimed are “not the way that they say they are.” She added, “They’re not run properly. Not all of them, but the one that I went to.”

Lichy pivoted to manufacturing in New York but said everything was “slower.” She added, “You have to go buy materials from Italy that are transported to New York and then you pay the broker fee on top. And then that costs a lot of money and then you can’t make it up in the markup.”

Lichy called the process a “never ending battle.” When asked whether she raised capital, Lichy replied, “No, and that’s what I learned to never to do again.”

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Despite the business not taking off the way she had hoped, Lichy noted that she has “no regrets” in her life.

“I ended up selling the name, but on the other hand, it was the best learning experience of my life,” she said. “I would never know how to build a business the way I’m building it now if that didn’t happen.”

Erin took the lessons she learned from the handbag business and applied them to her venture with husband Abe Lichy, her Mezcalum cofounder. “This time Abe and I went into it with a partner in sales, advisors, raising capital,” she said.