A long story about Fruitsnack and Shark + everything NEW!

waxed canvas cross body bag

All year I have written at length about what this pandemic is doing to my business, and businesses like mine. I wrote and talked and wrote more and endured massive life upheavals and uncertainty and heartbreak that I did not know was coming and still has not healed, and basement floods, weird washing machine situations, quarantine, a hospital stay, finding a place to live during a very frantic housing market, designing, producing and shipping a brand new kind of product that most of us in the US had never had to think about prior to this virus, spending every single day stressing about the impending potential of bankruptcy while worrying about the livelihood of my assistants as well as my own, refusing to let that be the outcome of my entire career, while also ensuring we were all safe to be at work each day, navigating a suddenly very finicky supply chain with sources having to be replaced left and right, all while trying to not let on that every day felt like I was building a house on sand.

And, well, I’m more than spent.
Burning from both ends.
Still managing to barely stay afloat.
Changing course almost daily.
Investigating all possible future scenarios to try and protect us from something like this happening again, while also working on a whole new collection for winter. Polarized emotions!

backpack in waxed canvas

One outcome of all this? Levity. We need more of it. The world is falling apart around us, which is not something to laugh about. But, eventually we break. A few weeks ago, when someone said our new color looked like a red fruitsnack. We all laughed and just went with it. And SHARK looks like the gray sharks you see off the coast of Daytona Beach every spring. This collection is filled with a lot of taking things far less seriously so we can have a little respite from the crumbling world around us, while acknowledging that we all might also be existing with a little bit of shark attack anxiety as well.

bedroom waxed canvas bag

We’ve had to scale back this winter collection substantially. Inventory and material management when cash flows have massively fallen off mean we have to be extra resourceful with what we are doing, and what we do best is make bags. So that is where we will focus.

We’ve added an economy section of Special Edition tote bags. Simple, useful bags with graphic elements, exploring parts of what we do in ways we’ve never done before. The current release is the SCARED CAT SUPER TOTE. A chainstitch embroidered tote bag, with an illustration designed and hand stitched by our shipping manager, Emmett. These are super limited edition. Pick one up while you can! They will probably not exist again.

wool felt fanny pack

I hope you love this new collection as much as I do. We’ve come a long way since March, with still a long way to go. I focused this collection on sticking close to home and a few things I truly love: skateboarding, plants, mopeds, impossibly soft sweaters, sunny doorways, city neighborhoods and patio cocktails, using my own home as the site for this photoshoot. You’ll see where I sleep, read, cook and hangout. My home is the extension of my creative practice in the studio and is super important that it’s an inspiring place to be. I think many of you are discovering the same value of home life now that we’re all spending so much more time here.

large waxed canvas tote bag

Last, a big huge gushy hug of thank you for your support. It is the sole reason we all still have jobs. We are really really good at what we do and we really want to keep doing it. Thank you for believing in us and giving us an opportunity to show you why we should continue to exist.

So much love.

xoxo,
Wendy
now go buy some bags!

A long story about Fruitsnack and Shark + everything NEW!