Yu Mei luxury handbag designer Jessie Wong with now 4-week-old Bobby. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Yu Mei luxury handbag designer Jessie Wong with now 4-week-old Bobby. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Yu Mei designer Jessie Wong has welcomed her first baby, Bolton ‘Bobby’ Wong Fisher.
The baby inspired her new Bobby Bag, debuted at Australian Fashion Week.
Wong is excited about Wellington’s retail future despite challenges facing the city.
For followers of luxury handbag brand Yu Mei, the debut of the Bobby Bag at this year’s Australian Fashion Week was a preview of a special and more personal bundle about to be welcomed.
But he was a ”good wee boy” and Bolton Wong Fisher, Bobby for short, was born in Wellington the day after Fashion Week wrapped, and his namesake bag had been launched on the runway.
He slept through Wong’s sitdown interview with the Herald about preparing for motherhood, being a business owner, and why the capital is still a great city despite some people’s view that it’s dying.
When Wong found out she was pregnant, she made plans for the first months of motherhood to go either way - to be “completely out of it” or have an “easy baby”.
Currently, 4-week-old Bobby is in the latter category.
These plans meant being willing to hand over aspects of the business she founded in 2015 to her team. However, it’s not the first time Wong has stepped back as Yu Mei has grown.
“I used to make all of the bags myself and so when I handed over production, that was a moment where it was like letting go of something and I remember just crying at that point,” Wong said.
Baby Bobby slept through Yu Mei founder Jessie Wong’s sitdown interview with the Herald about preparing for motherhood and being a business owner. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Preparing to have Bobby has forced Wong to make herself obsolete from the day-to-day and focus on the big picture.
“The prospect of having a baby has really sharpened my focus, and made me think about the future, and what we want to be achieving.”
Wong has also got a lot of work out of the way in the first half of this year including designing every bag Yu Mei will have until February.
At the beginning of her pregnancy, Wong was concerned about what people might think of her ability to run the business and have a baby.
But Wong was quickly reminded of her sense of self and what she was capable of.
“One little baby who’s just going to be a studio dude and hang out with us and hopefully be a team player so, I think you just make it work.
“We’re an all-female team. We’ve got mums on our team and so I think it’s a very accommodating environment to have a little baby in as well.”
Wong sought advice from a friend and fashion designer who reminded her she already knew what sleep deprivation felt like after having stayed up for four days and three nights to complete a production order.
Yu Mei luxury handbag designer Jessie Wong with partner Jack Fisher and now 4-week-old Bobby. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Wong lives in a 1904 villa in Roseneath with her partner Jack and the couple decided to embark on renovations to make more space before Bobby arrived.
“It wasn’t very planned to be honest,” Wong said.
“I went down to a conference in September in Queenstown and when I came back, Jack had demolished the whole kitchen down to the framing level, so definitely a bit of a DIY project.”
She estimated the project was about 60 per cent completed but the house was very liveable in the meantime- “there are no holes in the floor”.
Bobby was born in Wellington Hospital after a 19-hour labour.
“He was lifted up onto my chest, eyes wide open, a nice loud cry which was good because I knew he was breathing and he just sort of climbed up and snuggled in. I mean, he’s the love of my life it was a pretty amazing experience.”
Bobby has already inspired the new Yu Mei Bobby Bag which will be available in October.
Wong said it was a cute addition.
“It’s a baguette style in three beautiful colours of suede. It has a really lovely belt detailing and it incorporates all of the Yu Mei design signatures that make a Yu Mei Bag.”
Last year Yu Mei launched a collection called Utility which included an organiser that could transform the larger bags into a baby bag.
“I didn’t know that I was going to have a baby or have such a close need for a baby bag when I was designing it but we did work with quite a few mums on figuring out all the pouches and slots and where nappies go and all those sorts of things,” Wong said.
She used it when she went to the hospital to give birth and when she visited her parents.
Wong is taking time to enjoy the newborn bubble before getting back into work and pursuing Yu Mei’s next phase of growth in the Australian market.
But she plans to live in the city she has always called home for the foreseeable future.
“I grew up in Island Bay on the South Coast and went to school here and I think it’s a great city. How lucky are we that we can just walk down and be at the beach?”
It was recently announced that Wong is a member of Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau’s new business group of high-flyers to advise her directly as the capital braces for disruptive but transformational change.
Yu Mei luxury handbag designer Jessie Wong says Bobby is the love of her life. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“There’s obviously a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and these are all things that will really benefit us as a city and as a community in the future.
“But I think one of the challenges is potentially the rollout of those projects and making sure that businesses and retail are all in a really good position on the other end of all that development and change which is also exciting.”
Wong comes from three generations of retail.
Her Gung Gung had a fruit shop in Island Bay, her auntie and uncle had a fish and chip shop across the road from Parliament, and her dad had a computer business on Lambton Quay. Wong has a Yu Mei store on Victoria St.
Wong intended to advocate for retail on the mayor’s advisory group.
“It’s been in my family for a long time and it’s all changed but I think it’s really important that retail is looked at as one of the pieces of the puzzle of what makes the city great.”
Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
