I entered the boutique in their beauty department where they were introducing products from the Apothia beauty line. The line was developed and made in America and includes make-up, hair care and, skin care products. The reps were excited to help customers discover new products and everyone was enjoying getting pampered in the store with hair styling and make-up samples.
After getting my hair done and eating a chocolate cupcake I continued to the rest of the store where two jewelry designers were showing off their creations. Both designers were inspired by their travels around the world and had found creative ways to incorporate their internationally sourced gems and materials into their products for authentic and personalized pieces.
The first brand Kenton Michael designs was a husband and wife team based in Southern California where they design and hand make all their pieces. The fun surf wear inspired style bracelets they had on display were each unique and the two explained that they had included recycled beads they found as well as hand carved beads they purchased from a village in Africa through a personal friend. Well researched sourcing was an important part of their design process and each piece had a different story to tell.
Luna Sky was the second jewelry brand and Samantha the young owner and designer came out to talk with me about her beautiful gold and silver pieces featuring crystals and colorful gemstones. Customers were intrigued by the delicate designs sparkling on display. Sourcing was also an important part of designing for Samantha who has her studio in downtown Los Angeles central to the LA fashion and jewelry districts. She has traveled around the world to gem shows collecting crystals and precious gems that inspire her but, Los Angeles is still home.
She said,"I love having my studio in LA and working with my team rather than not knowing who's making the products." According to Samantha she was inspired to create her brand because she feels that jewelry is such a personal investment that people will be putting on their body or giving as gifts. She told me that right now instead of seasonal collections Luna Sky focuses on applying their philosophy of transferring positive energy through all of their pieces into each product in order to create a personal connection for their customers. The young brand has been steadily growing since Samantha originally founded it and she has continued to work hard at getting her name out there. She is always thinking of ways to best serve her customers and share the Luna Sky message and has a fun and informational blog on her website talking about tips for wearing jewelry as well as information on the history and meaning behind different gems and jewelry styles in her collections.
Next I stopped by the accessories department where milliner Gladys Tamez was talking to customers about her popular Hollywoodland collection which you can read more about in my interview with Gladys on the launch of her collection here.
The last designer I spoke to was Lina of Bandit and Cash who was there presenting her festival season collection of decorative vintage tees and tanks. The festival season collection was a collaboration between Lina and Sugar, a made in USA t-shirt and lounge wear brand based in Miami. The Bandit and Cash brand is a true fashion success story. According to Lina she went to school for fashion merchandising and has been working as a stylist in Miami for Sugar t-shirts and other brands for the past several years. She has always loved finding vintage t-shirts and in her spare time she would embellish or rework them into modern styles she liked. She often wore her creations to work and got compliments on them from co-workers. One day the designers at Sugar asked her where she got them and after telling them she made them they asked her to bring in ideas for a new festival collection they wanted to develop. She quickly created a selection of designs she had in mind and after presenting the collection to Sugar began creating the first collection of Bandit and Cash. Lina has been hard at work ever since and hand embellished over 700 pieces for the collection which is now sold at department stores such as Nordstrom's after launching in LA. She told me that she loved creating the collection and was inspired to make it more personal and decorative because she noticed there were too many plain one size fits all style tees in the fast fashion festival collections she had seen.
Lina said she made sure to design for all different body types offering some of her favorite looks like side cut outs and open back styles as well as long flowy outfits to pair with leggings. She also told me she wanted to make sure the styles would endure through the summer so that people could wear the pieces all throughout festival season rather than just for one event.
Small businesses like Bandit and Cash are an important part of the fashion industry in the U.S. because designers like Lina who are driven to create pieces based off their passions are often the people best suited to create solutions for customers with similar interests and experiences.
It was so great to see all the fun looks from the new collection on display around the store and customers enjoyed the event finding new brands and enthusiastic designers.
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