Of a Kind
A week ago—ok, maybe longer?—Louisa Parris stopped by with some of her new scarves in tow. WHOA, right? They’re inspired by San Francisco, the city she just left for England! —erica
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Going Local: Elizabeth Yarborough Gets to Know the Sheep Behind the Yarn
For Elizabeth Yarborough, who makes awesome bangles like these under the name Yarbie, a key inspiration hub is also a place of production: She visits a close-to-SF farm to spin yarn and meet the animals she has to thank for it. Amazing, right? Dive on in…
“Wind Rush Farm is near Petaluma, California, just an hour’s drive from my home in San Francisco. Pictured here is a beautiful barn and courtyard where I spin sheep’s wool into yarn and then dye it using all-natural materials like onion skins and annatto seeds. My teachers are Mimi and Marlie, master yarn-spinners and lovely ladies, and classes always start with a visit to the pastures! Mimi invites people to learn more about yarn-making and farm life on her blog, too.” —elizabeth
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Meet Bing Bang
How large-scale pieces gave way to much smaller ones.
“I didn’t really think of it as something that was going to become my life’s work—I was just doing it for fun,” designer Anna Sheffield says on Bing Bang, her now-decade-old jewelry line. While studying fine-art sculpture at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Anna dabbled in small pieces as she focused on big ones. “I started to delve into every single process known to man—bronze-casting, plaster-mold-making, ceramics, and raku-firing,” she says. “I started working with pieces of steel and bronze that I would find in the studio—random chunks cut off from bigger pieces.”
Those little designs found buyers by word-of-mouth, and Anna decided to make the move to the Big Apple to see which took over—her fine art or Bing Bang, a collection of mixed-metal works that, as she puts it, “walk the line between sweet and edgy.” “It was really organic and amorphous—I didn’t have a business plan; I didn’t set out to start a jewelry company. But it has been a really fun ride,” she says. She did, however, put some thought into what to call this thing: “I wanted to have a company name around the concept of two hands, the sound of the hammer anvil, and the idea of the creator being involved,” Anna explains. “Bing and bang are the two concepts—it’s the hand that holds the hammer, and the hand that holds the material while you hammer it.” —alisha prakash
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Ilana Kohn Dives into Textile Design
Her very first print: her Of a Kind edition.
When Ilana Kohn started her line in 2010, she had to teach herself how to make clothes, starting more or less at the beginning. “My mom got me a starter sewing machine when I was in middle school—but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I got a real machine. And then it just became an obsession,” the Brooklyn-based designer says. Now, five collections and a ton of online research and pattern-studying later, Ilana’s delving into textile design. And the scarves she made for Of a Kind? They’re the very first pieces to be produced from one of her creations. Here’s a look behind the scenes. —jiayi ying
Snag Ilana’s first print EVER on the scarf she designed just for Of a Kind. Right this way…
Marbled scarves hanging in Ilana’s Fort Greene apartment-slash-studio.
“My best friend Emily and I took a marbling class just for fun one day last year. We marbled a lot of scarves and really liked it. I already had the line, so we decided to sell some of them on the site—they ended up doing really well.”
A painting from Ilana’s illustrator years.
“I’ve been making clothes for some time now, so it made sense to start doing textiles—I kind of feel like all of my creative experiences are coming full-circle with this. Having worked in print, I know how to tweak the colors, and what colors work best with what medium. Now I’m learning that all over again with textiles—certain fabrics hold more pigments, so you have to bump up the contrast more.”
The sketchbook starting point.
“The whole process begins with my sketchbook. I’ll doodle random stuff, scan it, and then play around with it in Photoshop or Illustrator to create a repeat. If I like it, I’ll just fiddle around with it until something that grabs my eye comes up.”
Modeling her Ermie scarf.
“Most of the textiles for the collection will be screen-printed because they’re flat two-tone, but the scarves are actually digitally printed in San Francisco. Jennifer Parry Dodge from Ermie was so helpful in recommending places. I wish she lived on the East Coast—she’d be my best friend.”
“The print on the chiffon Of a Kind scarves is actually from a textile I designed for the upcoming collection—with the colorway inverted. This is the first time the print’s going out into the world.”
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Of a Kind
This Filly look—designed in Portland, OR, and made in San Fran!—is what you’d call moneyed. —erica
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Of a Kind
Not sure what surprises me more: Just how versatile these First Rite designs are—with a vest that easily transforms into a breezy dress—or the fact that the designer, Nikki Garcia, sews everything from her San Francisco studio. Either way, damn impressed. —jiayi
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A Year In…City Guides
Where to go when you’re in SF, LA, TX, NYC…
All of the designers we’ve worked with so far live in the U.S. of A. We’re talking all over America—San Fran, Philly, Chicago, Austin, L.A., Portland, Minneapolis, and, duh, NYC. Here, these crazy-talented, hyper-tuned-in people share their favorite local haunts and spots they’ve unearthed on their travels:
+ Erica Weiner’s Maine Favorites
+ Louisa Parris Plays Favorites in London and San Francisco
+ Susan Domelsmith’s Ultimate Guide to Austin
+ Where to Find Mandy Coon in the East Village
+ Gigi Burris’s Five Can’t-Miss Spots in Paris
+ The Nikolai Rose Guys Do the Upper West Side
+ Sophie Monet Okulick’s Guide to Big Sur
+ Elizabeth Yarborough Takes Us on a Color Tour of SF (see pic up top!)
+ Jaclyn Mayer and Orly Genger Borough Hop
+ Meredith and Wendell German Do Florence
+ Caroline Ventura’s (Gut-Busting) Guide to Montreal
+ Elena Coleman Howell’s L.A. Mid-Century Tour
+ Sara Dudzinsky’s Six Portland Restaurant Picks
+ Matt Singer’s NYC Neighborhood Walking Tour
+ Clare Vivier’s Very Favorite Places in Silverlake
Get yourself 25% off any order over $40 with the code NEWYEARNEWGEAR until the clock strikes 2012!
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Of a Kind
Though Daniel Boone Jr. would make a very good band name, it also happens to be the moniker of this buttery iPhone case from Marcelino’s San Franciso-based line Materials + Process. —erica
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Louisa Puts it All on Paper
Before she gets down to designing, she does her research.
For Louisa Parris, the digging and logging is half the fun. As she started concepting her first collection of attention-grabbing silk hats and scarves, she filled up a notebook. “I’ve always loved research—finding your themes, sketch-booking, going to libraries and galleries, and building this bible of what your collection is going to be about,” the San Francisco-based Brit explains. Here’s the road she went down to get to her standout accessories.
Louisa dreamt up a special scarf just for us! Click here to make it yours.
“I spent quite a bit of time growing up in Bath, England. It’s Jane Austen country. We would go down to the parks there and watch hot air balloon racing. I’ve never seen it since, but I just had such a strong impression of it from when I was quite small. A couple of years ago, I came across an article on hot air balloons and their prints and patterns. I love the lightness of them—particularly because I work a lot in silk. I thought, ‘I must do that collection on hot air balloons someday.’”
“All my gowns are named after women in my life. This time, because I wasn’t doing clothes, I wanted something different. Because they were balloons—and because you could tie a scarf really beautifully—I used names of different knots.”
“I’m always looking for color references. I was traveling with girlfriends around Morocco, and in one of the souks, a guy had all these silks in bundles. I bought every color. I don’t unravel them—I just use them as another guide because with the Pantone books, you can’t get the iridescent feel you do with silk.”
“For the Of a Kind scarf, I wanted really rich jewel tones. The names of some of the colors are really cool—minty green, robin’s egg blue, Nile blue, blush. And I always have some black in my work.”
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Louisa Plays Favorites in London and San Francisco
The designer is equally loyal to both locales.
Although Louisa Parris’s family hopped around a bit when she was a kid (oh, hi, Dubai), London is her home: She studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, where she won the womenswear collection award upon graduation. Right about then, she also fell in love, and, in 2005, moved out to San Francisco with her now husband Chris, who had landed a sweet gig at Apple. Now the sophisticated Brit has fully embraced the SF scene…but she also gets back to London as much as she can manage. These are her must-hits in both cities.
BAR
London / The Nightingale: “This is five doors down from my family home, and I think I’ve been going there before I was legal! At Christmas, it’s amazing—filled with friends, locals, and dogs.” [pictured]
San Francisco / Lone Palm: “It’s small with a great atmosphere—white tablecloths with black-and-white movies always playing in the corner. This little place gets packed, but I love it—and, again, it’s a short walk from my apartment.”
MUSIC VENUE
London / Wilton’s Music Hall: “I got married here this time last year for a second time. My husband and I always promised we would do it again for friends and family—the first time, Chris and I went to San Francisco City Hall in 2006. This is the oldest music hall in London, and it’s right in the heart of the city. I’ve yet to see a gig here, but I will one day I’m sure. You can even go on a guided tour—there is so much history to the place.” [pictured]
San Francisco / Bimbo’s 365 Club: “Seeing live shows in San Francisco is a huge part of going out here. Bimbo’s 365 is a stunning venue—I’ll never forget seeing Feist three or so years ago. The whole sound system went out, and Feist did this amazing gig with only a few lights on and very little sound support. It gave you shivers down your arms it was so atmospheric.”
PARK
London / Clapham Common: “This is where I go for a lazy afternoon of reading the papers, sitting with friends, and watching the world go by. Recently, they restored the grandstand, it looks very beautiful even without a band.”
San Francisco / Crissy Field: “If I could go down there every weekend, I would. Going right up under the Golden Gate Bridge on a cold, sunny day with the water right next to you is amazing and just so different from everything I grew up around in London.” [pictured]
PLACE TO SEE ART
London / Victoria and Albert Museum: “I’ve been going there since I was little and even showed my gowns in a fashion show in the Raphael Galleries. You can easily spend hours lost in the rooms and corridors of such an old museum.”
San Francisco / Legion of Honor: “I do love all our galleries in SF, and we have some really big ones. But lately I prefer the Legion of Honor. It’s much smaller, and I like to go when it’s quiet.” [pictured]
TEA
London / Fortnum & Mason: “Whenever I’m home, I have to do a tea run to Fortnum & Mason—not only to buy tea but also to see the window displays, which are amazing visual feats.” [pictured]
San Francisco / Martha & Brothers Coffee: “When my husband and I arrived in Noe Valley six years ago, this was the first place we went for tea and coffee, and we still go every day. I even send Martha’s coffee back to family in London and Paris—they are all addicted!”
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