Mike + Ally is starting to wind down the year and as a pre New Year’s resolution, I’m starting a blog!
The studio is inundated with @ 65 cartons of preciously made luxury bath accessories that may or may not go out by Friday overseas when we close for Christmas Vacation.
As many of you know we have over 50 enamel colors that we hand apply to order in any given season. We make each piece one at a time depending on the clients’ needs. The studio has been enameling 6 days a week since November 1st and we are still going to disappoint some clients who can’t get their orders for Christmas. That brings me back to the 65 LARGE cartons sitting in the warehouse! My fingers are crossed that they will be picked up by the 3 shipping companies that we’re trying to coordinate with.
Besides the cartons mentioned above, we are packing all our samples to ship to France for our participation in Maison Objet. This is the show where we meet all our overseas clients from Japan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, England, Turkey, Hong Kong and believe it or not many of our U.S. stores. I’ve been busy since the end of last Fall’s trade shows designing and producing our new samples. While I’m a terrible cook in the kitchen, I’m excellent at stirring our enamels and creating new patterns and designs.
Bill + I are both concerned about our beloved Paris.The aggressive protests we’re seeing on the news is horrifying, not only about the destruction of property but will the buyers come to Maison Objet? Politics aside, I hope all sides come to an understanding.
2 weeks after Paris is NY Now , the only other trade show we participate in each season.This year is a bit tricky and we’ll be wishing upon the stars that our samples make an uninterrupted return to New York City from Paris with such a small window.
If not the buyers will discover an empty booth with Bill and I practicing our Tai Chi and Pilates!
As always we’re introducing a lot of newness at both these shows:
We have 2 new options in our Taj Gemstone Collection: Rock Crystal and Obsidian with Gold foil insets.I posted the photo of the samples a couple of days ago , it was the largest audience we’ve ever had look at our Instagram ….I hope this is an indication of sales to come.
Another addition to Spring 2019 is based on Champagne bubbles, really! Influences can come from anywhere and a trip last Fall to the Champagne region of France made me want to design a line based on the bubbles in the glass! But we’ve named it Proseco (Italian Champagne)
Another new favorite we’re introducing is Genesis… we really wanted to call it Gaudi after the Spanish artist that created such fabulous one of a kind buildings that we loved in Barcelona. BUT we thought too many people who weren’t familiar with him would think we were saying gaudy (ostentatiously or tastelessly ornamented ) I’ll be very surprised if this design is not a winner!
So much happening in the world – yet we remain cautiously optimistic.Happy holidays and a prosperous New Years.
