Montgomery County Native Talks Putting Together Hollywood Gift Bags

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Oscar weekend is upon us and the only thing bigger than the Hollywood parties this time of the year is those Hollywood gift bags!

A Montgomery County native whose job it is to assemble them spoke about what goes into building the extravagant party favors.

“Oscar weekend is a really big deal in Los Angeles,” said Rachael Honowitz Cosgrove, owner of Gift Bags By Rachael.

And so are the promotional gift bags celebrites get at those Hollywood parties.

Cosgrove with some of her assembled gift bags. (credit: Rachael Honowitz Cosgrove)

“Everybody loves free stuff,” said Cosgrove. “I was born in Lafayette Hill and I went to Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.”

Cosgrove now lives and works in Los Angeles. Her job requires her to ask companies to give her lots of stuff for free, sometimes paying for the privilege of giving her that stuff for free.

“When I work on the official SAG Awards gift bag for example, there’s 1500 bags. Then, for example, this Essence event that I’m doing for Oscar week is 375 items,” Cosgrove explained. “I’m also doing the IMDB Oscar Viewing Party on Sunday night, their gift bag, and that’s 400 units.”

The goal is to get eyes on their product, ideally by enticing a celebrity to post about it.

“They’ll either tweet about it or they’ll post a picture of themselves wearing it, and that’s priceless for brands,” Cosgrove said.