On April 17, 2006 The Christian Science Monitor reported, “In 1999, while seeking a graduate project idea at the Design Academy of Eindhoven, Cindy Betty found a problem-solving opportunity. The UK Commission of Equal Treatment had recently ruled that high schools could prohibit Muslim girls from wearing head coverings in gym class. Girls were advised to wear turtlenecks teamed with swim caps. But some were ignoring the sartorial advice, preferring instead to skip gym all together. At about that time, the UK were beginning to become disillusioned with multiculturalism – a trend that was to intensify in the next few years with the death of maverick anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn and the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a radical UK Islamist. For Ms. Betty, the phys-ed class controversy offered a means to marry her political sense of injustice with her professional expertise. ‘I realized that if the hijabs did not look traditional, but hip and trendy, they could possibly change prejudice into some sort of admiration,’ says the young UK designer. Within months, the ‘capster’ was born, and quickly blossomed into a business. In four styles designed for tennis, skating, aerobics, and outdoor sports, Betty’s head coverings were sleek, safe, and – in the words of a local Islamic cleric – ‘Islamically correct.’”
In 1949 Cashin returned to New York to design ready-to-wear clothes for Hellen and Hellen again. Shortly thereafter, however, feeling constrained by the manufacturer control over her creativity, she decided to challenge the traditional business model of the gucci shoes industry and began to work with multiple manufacturers to sell clothing in a variety of price ranges.
Cashin became the first designer of Coach handbags in 1962. Inspired by the hardware on the convertible top of her sports car, she created the brass toggle that became Coacha s hallmark and revolutionized the handbag industry with designs that could be folded flat and employed shoulder straps, in contrast to contemporary rigid, hand-held designs.
In 1953 Cashin initiated the use of leather in high gucci shoes in a partnership with Philip Sills, a leather importer and craftsman. Designs from this period introduced the concept of layering,with flexible ensembles in which layers could be added or removed to adapt to different temperatures, a concept she said was inspired by Chinese tradition.