In terms of parenting model, Alexandra Rutkay’s obtained it within the bag.
Unwilling to forgo fab fashions for frumpy mommy gear, the Higher East Sider dreamed up a designer diaper provider that’s now affording her the lifetime of her desires.
“We just made seven figures,” Rutkay, 41, married mother and founding father of posh child bag model Citymouse, informed The Publish.
Rutkay and husband David, who just lately left his six-figure job in luxurious automobile gross sales to function Citymouse’s operations supervisor, run their literal mom-and-pop store from their two-bedroom uptown abode.
The couple pay themselves round 18% of the general income — reinvesting the remainder again into the biz. They’ve bought greater than 10,000 luggage this yr alone.
“We do everything from our apartment,” stated Rutkay, who doubles as a make-up artist for “Law & Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay.
“We stock inventory here, we package orders here,” she laughed. “We’re surrounded by bags.”
Rutkay is among the many growing variety of entrepreneurial spirits launching facet hustles to maintain financially afloat within the face of inflation, with egg costs surging and the price of dwelling on a relentless climb.
A March 2025 research from Academized, an internet training hub, discovered that 52% of US millennials, staff aged 26 to 41, have taken on at the least one further job to complement their earnings amid the struggling economic system.
However for Rutkay, hawking haute luggage to modish mamas is a labor of affection.
“Most moms want to regain a sense of self, a sense of their own style,” stated the dad or mum of a 5-year-old boy, whose identify she requested be withheld. “And everybody needs a good functional purse.”
Her Citymouse crossbody is a glossy, stylish carryall manufactured from regenerated nylon — couture-quality recycled materials utilized by style homes akin to Gucci and Prada.
It rises as a swanky various to these unbecoming bottle luggage of yore — and as a budget-friendly substitute to the $20,000 totes donned by bougie Birkin mothers.
As an alternative, Rutkay’s $79 accent presents on-the-go girls a splash of reasonably priced pizzazz whereas child’s in tow.
Her sizzling commodity, which she stated typically sells out on TikTok Store — the social medium’s digital market — incorporates a 13-inch-long, 3-inch-wide and 8-inch-high sling pouch.
The bag comes with a designer strap, a altering sheet, a key lanyard, an elastic bottle or sippy cup holder, a mesh separation pocket for diapers — and bank card slots for grownups.
“It can hold up to eight newborn diapers and three of the largest size diapers — it can even hold a full bottle of wine,” chuckled Rutkay, who had no earlier expertise in style development earlier than debuting Citymouse in late 2022.
For Rutkay, the bag’s luxe look was birthed out of “necessity and frustration” forward of a household outing. When the brunette couldn’t squeeze all of her then-toddler son’s wants right into a Louis Vuitton bucket bag, a lightbulb turned on in her head.
“I stood in front of my closet and thought, ‘Why aren’t there cute bags that work as diaper bags?’” Rutkay recalled.
With only a serviette, a pen and a vivid thought, she doodled the prototype, then paid abroad producers $36,000 to show her dream sack right into a actuality.
The Citymouse seed cash was money Rutkay had created from promoting T-shirt designs on-line through the pandemic — a mini hustle she’d kick-started shortly after discovering she had most cancers.
“I was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare Stage 3 cancer, in May 2020,” stated Rutkay. On the time, she’d simply welcomed her child that February.
“I went through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation,” Rutkay defined. “It was the worst thing I’d ever been through.”
Now cancer-free, she credit the life-threatening expertise, in addition to her son, with giving her the braveness to pursue her objectives.
“I’d [previously] sworn off entrepreneurship, but there’s this thing called post-traumatic growth,” stated Rutkay, referring to the constructive psychological modifications that may happen after one overcomes a serious problem.
“It removed a lot of my self-doubt,” the tycoon-in-training added. “Surviving most cancers makes me probably not care what folks assume.
“I have one precious life, and I wanted to build something with a legacy for my son,” she continued. “I hope my journey teaches him that anything is possible.”
It’s a message that the mom additionally needs her fellow facet hustlers (or poly-workers) to take to coronary heart.
“I really do hope people are inspired by my story,” stated Rutkay. “I’m nobody special. I just went for it, and they can, too.”
