Spotted at Anthropologie!

Big thanks to Ben Blood for spotting our custom cosmetic bags for Anthropologie in their New York store!

N.E.E.T. Magazine

We just wanted to give a quick thanks to N.E.E.T. Magazine for featuring Electric Love, Sololá and Bound in their March issue. N.E.E.T. is an "eco-friendly, grassroots style bible for the digital age" founded in 2005 in the UK and we're thrilled to be included throughout the issue. Thanks again Stephanie!

Grain in the new RISD XYZ magazine!

Rhode Island School of Design's new alumni magazine, RISD XYZ designed by WellNow Design, is finally out. Inside, we were excited to find our Sololá purses featured next to Paul Loebach's Gradient Table and Micheal Maltzan's Skid Row Housing Trust which we hope to see when we are in LA later this week.

Thanks Liisa for thinking of us again!

Sololá in Lucky!

Big thanks to Editor At Large, Elise Loehnen for featuring Sololá in the upcoming July issue of Lucky!

New Packaging and Hang Tags!

Our Electric Love rings now arrive in these custom recycled content chipboard matchbooks. Chi-Chi and Sololá have new hang tags too!

Chi-Chi and Sololá in the blogosphere

We are super excited by all the great posts on Chi-Chi and Sololá that keep popping up. Above is a post by Jennifer from yesterday on Ecouterre (Jasmin wrote about Sololá in January). Check out more on Design Milk, Notcouture, and Frizzi Frizzi.

Thanks to everyone who has placed orders through our shop. We just received new shipments from Guatemala so look forward to more images soon.

UPDATE 04/02/10: Check out Laura Cassidy's post on her Wear What When blog at Seattle Metropolitan.

Chi-Chi joins Sololá in our shop!

Our Chi-Chi necklaces, made in collaboration with artisans in Guatemala, are finally up in our shop!! They join our Sololá purses also made in Guatemala from upcycled vintage textiles.

To read/see more about Chi-Chi and Sololá, check out our long overdue press release and/or download some high-res images here.

Above is Chi-Chi short multi cluster. Below is Chi-Chi long green cluster, Sololá small multi, and Sololá large multi.

A+ Recap

It was a long week at the New York International Gift Fair. Our little display in the "A+: The Young Designers' Platform" was busy busy. We met a lot of great people and wrote some nice orders. The best part was getting to meet many of our buyers for the first time in person. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

Above is our pedestal with Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition hanging in the background and non-profit Trash For Teaching.

The A+ wall text. You can read it in full in the press release here.

A view of Munire Kirmaci, Appree Co. and Loyal Luxe.

Marie-Pier Guilmain, Munrie Kirmaci and Jiyeon Ahn.

Ekdesign's pedestal.

A view of A+ from far corner of the booth with work by Munire Kirmaci upfront.

Steve from Trash For Teaching giving James and my Mom another lecture.

Our Electric Love rings (made of reclaimed electrical wire) in pink and white.

A view of our pedestal from above...

and with Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition hanging in the background.

A detail of our Sololá purses.

Display by Trash For Teaching. These are building block kits made from garment industry waste. All proceeds from their sale go to supporting the non-profit which brings waste materials into the Los Angeles school district to be used in art making programs.

Loyal Luxe's flat-pack cat house.

Lighting by Luca 12:00.

Appree Co.'s leaf shaped sticky notes.

Jiyeon Ahn of Luca 12:00 with an Electric Love ring at our pedestal.

Marie-Pier Guilmain, Maud Beauchamp, James Minola, Munire Kirmaci and Sangwoo Nam.

James Minola, Jiyeon Ahn, Munire Kirmaci and Sangwoo Nam.

And lastly... A detail of our Chi-Chi necklace prototype. Chi-Chi is handmade by artisans in Guatemala. It should be available for purchase in our shop in late March/early April.

Sololá is here!!

In 2006, while still students at RISD, James, Brit and I were part of an amazing wintersession course taught by Mimi Robinson called Bridging Cultures Through Design. Working with artisan communities in Guatemala, we developed a series of textiles goods celebrating Guatemalan textile traditions. The products went to market and continue to support sustainable incomes for those artisan groups that we collaborated with.

We are excited to now be offering one of the designs from that collaboration, called Sololá, in the Grain Shop! Here is the official description:

Sololá celebrates the artistry of Guatemalan women weavers. Each purse upcycles a vintage huipil (traditional women's blouse woven on the backstrap loom) to create an individual statement. Turned inside-out, the huipils are an explosion of color and handwork. Each purse is assembled by Guatemalan artisans in Antigua from textiles sourced at the famous Chichicastenango Market.

Sololá will be available in two sizes at $38 and $60. Each purse is made in Antigua, Guatemala and is totally unique.