Photograph by Judy Pak.
Founding a luxury handbag brand was not something that DC physician Verniese Moore had planned to do. Instead, the idea came to her as a joke from her husband. It was the summer of 2022 and the pair were vacationing in Brazil when he said playfully, “The next time you bring a handbag [home], it should have your name on it.” Immediately, she says, a lightbulb went off. “I was just like, ‘Wait a minute! A bag with my name on it!’ He said it jokingly, but I took him seriously, and I started to look into how to create a handbag.”
From there, Moore devoted herself to building a luxury bag brand, while juggling her responsibilities as a full-time family medicine physician and mother. During her evenings and days off, she would study up on the process of crafting handbags. She watched YouTube videos and analyzed handbag craftsmanship and structure. She connected with experts, and in 2024 Moore embarked on her first trip to Italy to locate designers and factories for her brand.
Earlier this month, she officially launched Vie Lorie with a debut collection called “Tryumph” that features four handbags Moore says are designed to celebrate the triumphs of everyday women.
Moore’s backstory and challenges are also built into the foundation of Vie Lorie. In 2010, while she was still in medical school, Moore was diagnosed with stage three lymphoma and given six months to live. Instead, she beat cancer—a triumph, she says. The name Vie Lorie is a play on her full name, Verniese Lorielle Moore, and draws from the French word vie for life and the imagery of laurel wreaths, which were often given to victorious Greek and Roman athletes. “So, the name Vie Lorie itself means life of victory, life of triumph,” says Moore.
Since her launch, Moore has received a lot of love from women of all ages who use her handbags both for work and going out. However, the most valuable feedback, she says, came from her own community of fashion-obsessed physicians. While building Vie Lorie, Moore shared her progress with private online physician communities and built up a loyal following of what she describes as “an army of thousands of physicians” behind her. Moore says she turned to them first because they were used to quality and had high expectations.
“The moment I launched, I held my breath to hear what they had to say,” says Moore. “I knew that if I could get their vote of approval, then I’ve gotten one foot out the door. The support has been wonderful and out of this world.”
Currently, the handbags are available on Vie Lorie’s website. Moore is already planning a second collection.
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