today at the home office…

it is eerily quiet. lots of people are out this week, but some of us are still here, hard at work!

here are some of our designers, working with mannequins and fabric swatches…

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rinsing off a print plate…

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discussing some designs…

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buyers checking out samples…

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love her shirt!

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sweet glasses ladies!

final jeweler bios

erica pena and melissa joy manning are the final two jewelry designers to be featured on the blog, and it makes sense to put them together as they are both female artists who create very feminine, romantic pieces that any girl would be lucky to own, and both designers also make an effort to be socially and environmentally friendly.

the inspiration behind erica pena’s first collection came from her move from manhattan to puerto rico, as she conveys this experience through jewelry that is a mix of new york’s rough edginess and the caribbean’s light airiness. her travels to places like bali continue to influence her designs and stimulate her to create unique and spiritual pieces that are chic, girly and bohemian. her travels have also influenced her to incorporate social and environmental causes into her work, and she joined with yayasan membina api cinta kasih (YAMACK), a non-profit organization in bali. one of the projects she has worked on in conjunction with this organization is building a unit/school for disabled children financed by the sales of a necklace and bracelet designed specifically for the cause.

we are very excited to be working with melissa joy manning, a US jewelry designer who creates one-of-a-kind pieces that are feminine and girly but with an edge, often mixing modern and traditional elements. she says that her jewelry “is not an accessory, but an expression… [it’s] about finding a piece that speaks to the individual and echoes their personality. i believe that jewelry can influence the way you feel; it can say and mean something different to every wearer.” the one-of-a-kind aspect of her items enhances this idea, as each piece and takes on a meaning entirely exclusive to its owner. she also uses stones believed to hold healing energy, and places tiny holes in the design of her work to allow the stone’s energy to flow through the metal and into the wearer. each piece of her jewelry is handmade in her studio in oakland, ca by an in-house production staff and using materials from only domestic suppliers. this is something melissa joy manning feels strongly about, as she pays close attention to running an environmentally responsible business.

view our erica pena and melissa joy manning collections on our website.

dallas shaw

dallas shaw is a delaware-based artist who’s work ranges from acrylic and watercolor paintings to notecards and tee-shirts. she also happens to be a big fan of free people! dallas was kind enough to answer a couple of questions for me and picked out some illustrations that she feels are representative of free people.

when and why did you decide you wanted to be a professional artist?

oddly enough i knew i wanted to be in art in some way when i was very young. i wrote a letter to the head animator of walt disney world when i was in 6th grade and asked him for a job! i think i was a little too young, but i worked at it since grade school, kept drawing, majored in illustration… as i grew older i really began to love the fashion industry and wanted to work in fashion but the right opportunity hasn’t come up just yet so here i am!

i read that you’re inspired by fashion and music…what designers and musicians are your personal favorites?
i do listen to music when i paint but i am really heavily influenced by the fashion industry. my personal favorites change by season but i am currently crushing on collections by phillip lim, lanvin & peter som.

what do you like to do when you’re not drawing and painting?
i don’t have a lot of free time on my hands this year. if i do end up with a few extra hours during the week i try to make time to spend with my really supportive husband. if I’m not with him during those couple of hours you’ll find me shopping!

to see more of dallas’s awesome work, check out her website!

sneak peak: home sweet home!

i have a very special preview for you today of a new segment on the blog called home sweet home!  we thought it would be fun to give you all a glimpse into the homes of some of our free people team members, and to kick things off we took a trip to the beautiful home of our managing director of design and image.  she’s a big part of the free people look so we’re thrilled that she let us in and we got to see a little bit of her personal style and what inspires her.   we also got to meet her adorable children!

here’s a sneak peak into her home, and stay tuned for the video… it’s coming soon!

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natural beauty

i’ve probably mentioned this before but our graphic designers are awesome…i love this artwork!

and since we’re in the holiday spirit, i’ve made it available on our flickr page for you to download! you can use it on your desktop, as a card, or whatever else you may want to do…just click on the image!

love heals

of all of the jewelry designers we have featured, this one is my personal favorite…

the name love heals immediately brings to mind the notions of compassion, spirituality and family, which are the core elements behind this jewelry collection created by adriana goddard. the line is run in collaboration with her son gunnar and daughter elisa. adriana spent the earlier part of her life traveling around europe and supporting herself by selling jewelry at markets. more recently, she has studied healing and spiritual arts, the influence of which is very apparent not only in the name of the jewelry collection, but in the pieces themselves.

each symbol and charm holds an individual meaning, and the jewelry also represents greater social and environmental causes, such as tree planting, child slavery and child blindness organizations. for each piece of jewelry purchased from love heals, 10 trees are planted, a donation is made to abolishslavery.org (to fund the equivalent of one month of a child’s freedom), and a donation is made to keep a child from blindness for one year with vitamin angels, who provide critical nutrients to children on the verge of going blind in inner cities around the world. in just one year since starting the program, 250,000 trees have been planted in the u.s. and africa. in addition, all of the love heals jewelry is made by hand inside a 30-foot geodesic dome on the family’s organic farm in ojai, california. the results are very earthy, bohemian pieces with a feminine touch, and the greater meaning behind them makes them all the more irresistible.

check out our selection of necklaces by love heals here.

musical ornaments

if i had a christmas tree, these are the kind of ornaments i’d put on it. i saw these on pitchfork and I think they’re so cool – they’re recycled christmas tree ornaments made by the glass casters union in oregon, and proceeds from the sale of the ornaments go towards helping homeless and low-income families in oregon. this year’s designs include modest mouse, blizen trapper and the decemberists (shown above). i also like some of the ones they’ve done in previous years:

patch-work

patch nyc is a collaboration of two talented artists and designers – don carney and jon ross.  we here at fp instantly fell in love with their one-of-a-kind pieces and are excited to feature them as one of our favorite designers!  the patch nyc collection is vintage inspired, but also maintains a strong contemporary look.  to create their latest collection they experimented with a variety of metal finishing techniques to obtain a weathered quality that adds to their jewelry’s character by giving it a rough edge.  the collection features a collage of vintage pieces mixed with newer findings, using charms, stones and beads to create something special that is both modern and old, and undeniably unique.

check out the jewelry by patch on our website!