Wearable Art Blog

Reincarnated rubber bags by GOMA

Goma, which is Spanish for rubber, is also a line of handbags, wallets and laptop covers made from car or bicycle inner tubes and nylon lining. Amazing, eh?

I was especially taken with the bags - Berlin-based designer Ainhoa Salgueiro repurposes old car tires sourced from Vietnam and turns them into great pieces of wearable art.

Here's the best part. Salgueiro personally select all the tires, each with a unique tread shaped by its experiences in the streets. So, each bag has its own kind of worldly karma.

The bag below is made with car and bicycle inner tubes and nylon lining - it makes you wonder what roads the rubber has traveled.

GOMA was conceived while Salgueiro was living in Hanoi, Vietnam (where she was born and raised). She was struck by the sheer volume of worn-out rubber tires from bicycles, scooters and motorbikes that were piled high in landfills or that were just burned off. She decided to re-purpose them, turning them into fashion.

It's hard not to love this story. If you want to get someone a sustainable holiday gift, the GOMA bags might be the perfect way to give someting unique and, at the same time, support a worthy enterprise.

  

You can see more at GOMABAGS.com.

 

 

Shibori Textile Bags by Yuh Okano

I don't usually feature the work of an artist more than once. But I will break my rule by showing these bags by textile artisan Yuh Okano. I've feature Okano's scarves on the Wearable Art Blog before, but not her bags - so, here they are.

  
Yuh Okano is known for her shibori textile scarves. Now, she's taking hand made shibori fabric and making bags out of it. Shibori is a Japanese method of binding and dyeing cloth. Each of these bags is produced in small batches.

 
The polka dot bags are made of silk organza that can be ordered in a number of color combinations. The bag below has big, soft, resin dots. 

 
Okano's handsome work has been featured in galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Kobe Fashion Museum. I'm sure that her growing up in one of the most important Japanese textile regions has inspired and informed her work with shibori.

 

Aren't these patterns and styles fun? The quality of the craftsmanship is terrific, too.

 

You can see more of Okano's bags and scarves at the Artful Home. 

Leather Bags by Missibaba

Chloe Townsend fell in love with the flexibility and options that working with leather afforded her when she studied at the London College of Fashion (2003). Wanting to be a designer on her own terms, she decided to launch an accessories label, Missibaba, a British Indian name meaning, "little miss."

Now situated in Woodstock (Cape Town), South Africa, Townsend decided to start the brand about five years ago. She decided early on to help the local economy by collaborating with local craftswomen on design and having them make leather handbags, belts, and jewelry for Missibaba.

 

How can you not like the hot pink Wild West Koi clutch (above)? It's made in two layers: punched lumo pink, red, bright copper, and bronze leather discs layered onto cherry stripe printed leather and stitched with bright pink thread. Check out the striped handle, too!

Here's the Cha-Ching purse in cobalt blue that's hand painted in gingham check. A true one-of-a-kind piece of wearable art!
  

 
 

Another Cha-Ching bag (below) is in charcoal leather with loop cutout detailing on the front side in charcoal stripe and brown leather.
 
Last but not least, the Buckaroo bag in yellow stripe printed leather with flap and loop detailing in mustard. It's the yellow stripes that grab me!

 

 
 
 

I really like that each of these pieces is distinguished by rich colors and playful designs and that Townsend is helping local women make a better life through their craft work.

You can see more of these bags and and buy them at Missibaba on Etsy. And to see the full range of Missibaba work, go to Missibaba.

 

ShopCurious

Susan Muncey is the founder and creative force behind ShopCurious, an online boutique offering an eclectic collection of vintage fashion, jewelry and other unusual items, many of them handmade. Susan contacted me and I thought why not do a feature story on this kindred spirit's endeavor, since I'd already shown some ShopCurious items on the Wearable Art Blog.

My interview with Susan includes some of her favorite pieces from ShopCurious, as well as a few of my own. If you're "curious," click on the links to get background information on the selected items.

What inspired you to create ShopCurious?

ShopCurious combines many of the creative things I love doing: researching, writing, trend-spotting, finding unique accessories, vintage clothing and unusual things for the home.

I've always been on the lookout for major trend shifts and spotted a renewed interest in curiosity cabinets and collecting, alongside a move away from branded goods towards more quirky and original pieces.

 
One-off turban from a series of original handcrafted turbans, created especially for Shop Curious. Made from pieces of exotic vintage fabric, embellished with corsages, beads, and brooches from Susan's own collection.

 

How did you get to where you are today?

From 1997, I owned and curated a cult London concept store called Fashion Gallery. In 2003, I closed the boutique to focus on trend forecasting work, which culminated in my book, Trends Beyond Life: In Search of Immortality, which was published in 2006. Even though I purchased the ShopCurious.com domain name in 2005, I didn’t get around to setting up the website until May 2008.

 

 

Sandra Bamminger: Dogtooth check and green tribal print handmade hair band with bead detail. 
 

You say ShopCurious is the online equivalent of slow food.

Yes, ShopCurious is very much about hand crafted/recycled/naturally beautiful things. Many of the items we sell are one-off pieces, or very limited edition runs of a unique design. We value the artistic and the artisan over the brand name and the label.

 
This red leather and lamb’s wool bag is from the Samurai “Bushido” collection of handmade bags by Vivien Hew. The knitted fabric design is based on traditional Japanese motifs, scripts and armor patterning. The bands were woven on a traditional inkle hand loom.

 

How do you decide what items to feature on the site?

I’m a very curious person and I love to be constantly learning about new things. The site is aimed at the Curious Cognoscenti – people who are also interested in discovering new things and learning about the unique design or provenance of items. For example, we place objects in context according to their history and geography and describe their attributes and modern day use (a device that has latterly been gaining popularity).  

The site also reflects my own sense of style and humor – forming, as it does, a sort of personal diary of some of the things I have done and items I have found on my travels. I would also like to add that there are no big budgets involved – so the site has something of a fashionable, homespun imperfection about it.

What are some of your hot sellers right now in fashion or jewlry?

Pieces from our wide selection of arty, vintage silk scarves. Here's one from Zandra Rhodes, an original 1970s hand finished silk scarf with painted lady and trademark squiggle/chevron printed on it.

 

Annie Sherburnes’s mosaic necklaces, brooches and bags are also popular. Below is Sherburne's Nefertiti necklace made from a bronze colored metal cast of Nefertiti embellished with multi-colored found vintage jewels.

 
 

Our quirky one-off vintage brooches sell very well too, like this rare Royal Navy Pin in mother of pearl with gold and blue anchor and silver rim.

 
 
Other popular items include arty, hand painted earrings and bangles by the Maggio sisters, who created the hand pained Dangly Zebra Earrings (below).

 

 

What are your favorite items?

I’m saving up for a piece of jewelry by the talented designer Ornella Iannuzzi (who has been featured on the Wearable Art Blog). This incredibly arty coral ring (below) is made with a fresh water pearl set in vermeil gold.

 
 
What kind of trends are you observing in fashion and jewelry?

Trends tend to be linked to the season, as well as to the zeitgeist of the moment. I prefer to think of the items we stock as timeless works of art, which are loosely linked to ‘themes’ rather than trends. For instance, we’ve commissioned the Maggio sisters to interpret themes such as PopArt, tribal style, animals, Italian gardens and Art Nouveau on their beautifully hand painted pieces of jewelry. For Autumn/Winter, one of the most significant new trends will be musically inspired accessories.

What’s coming up on ShopCurious?

Curious? Are you?

Well, we'll just have to check ShopCurious to find out what's coming up. Thanks Susan for doing this interview. Keep up the great work unearthing unique creations for us to enjoy. You can see more at ShopCurious.

 

 

Resin Bags and Jewelry by Sobral

Carlos Sobral is a jewelry artist from Brazil who started selling leather bags and shoes on the beaches of Rio de Janerio in the 1970s. After being smitten by resin jewelry sold in Rio by some Argentinean artists, he decided to shift gears and make his own jewelry and bags using resin. Since then, he's become a skilled designer with resin and (as I'll describe below) a generous employer of local artisans.

"Resin is like a chameleon," Sobral says. "It mimics every possible color and material." I agree that resin is a perfect material for creating bright, multiple colors and shapes. Sobral's 8-step polishing process adds to the vibrancy.

 

 
 

Sobral began selling his work in Paris, where he was 'discovered.' He won several awards there and began collaborating with some famous fashion houses, like Karl Lagerfeld. The colorful "Sculptural Cones" necklace (above) is from the Lagerfeld collection. It was originally meant to be a sculpture but Karl Lagerfeld's team wanted to make it into a necklace. And so they did.

 
 

Necklace from "Chic Shock" collection: flattened stone-shaped beads in dusty rose and clear/gold. Made of a light weight, natural resin.

What distinguishes his jewelry, aside from the incredibly complex designs and colors, is that it's made by hand by artisans in Nova Iguacu, Brazil. Sobral believes in supporting his workshop of over 150 people, providing them with retirement plans, daily meals and on-site services like acupuncture and massage.

 
"Art-Deco" necklace made of a natural light weight resin.

SOBRAL is also a green company - he sometimes uses recycled industrial waste in his collections. The bag (below), from the "Flash Gordon" collection, is made of multi-colored resin with recycled circuit board parts.   

 

The bags are actually my favorite with their cute shapes and rounded wire handles. Just look at all the stuff that's inside the bag below. It's like art in a bag!

 

 

Did I mention that Sobral's work is incredibly affordable? Some of the pieces are priced below $100. Such a bargain for handmade work, which has even entered into the permanent collections of the Newark Museum in New Jersey and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

In November 2009, Sobral opened his first store in the United States, in SoHo (New York City), adding to his growing list of stores located around the world.

 You can go to Sobral online to see more and find one of his stores.