Design Star: Malene B. of Malene B. Carpets

I met Malene Barnett approximately 2 yrs ago at a Tory Burch Foundation Networking event that mutual friend, handbag designer Nneka Saran, had invited me to. Nneka and Malene were both participants in the intensive entrepreneurship program that took place earlier in that year. As I was meeting women throughout the room and exchanging business cards, not one but ALL said to me, "You must meet Malene!" once I told them I was starting a line of home goods. So I marched over to woman with the tapered haircut, silky smooth brown skin and smile as bright as the sun; and introduced myself. Now, just so you know, that's not really my style. I prefer introductions because people can be cold and standoffish and downright rude when approached by a stranger but not Malene. She greeted me warmly. We quickly discovered that we were FIT alums and the conversation flowed smoothly. I asked her questions about approaching new stores with my line and she so graciously dispensed advice that still stays in the back on my mind to this day.

In the next few days I received my FIT magazine, HUE and guess who was featured? Malene B, of course! Her work has been featured in countless magazines and online publications and rightfully so. Malene B. Carpets are not just beautiful, they are soulful and come from a place of authenticity inspired by her travels. It has been an honor to have the opportunity to interview one of my favorite designers for The Lifestyles of the Authentic & Creative.

1. Please introduce yourself. 

My name is Malene Barnett and I’m the Design Director and Principal of Malene B Carpets. 

2. What do you create? 

We make handmade custom carpets and home furnishings for luxury residential and commercial environments.  Each product we create is inspired from my travels and passion for all things art and culture. 

3. How did you get started on your creative path?

My creative story starts in third grade when I was placed in an artistically talented program. The kids were encouraged to express themselves through drawing and painting.

4. What inspires you to create?
I love culture, rituals, celebrations and the stories behind these traditions. Combined with our planets landscape, these elements set the stage for creating the quintessential Malene B design.

5. How have you been able to make a living by being you authentic & creative self? 

I worked in the rug industry with major players for 10 years. And, before launching my business, I studied the design industry and the paths of its most renown entrepreneurs.  My personal savings were the foundation for opening Malene B Carpets. To date, I have not taken out a bank loans to support this venture. 

Prior to opening, I purchased a house.  Since my home was priority,  a grassroots approach to business building was its format.  I relied on word of mouth, heavily networked and developed great relationships with media. 

The first 4.5 years were really rocky. I had no credit cards -- maxed out on home renovations. I operated on a cash basis and only bought what was affordable.  If I couldn’t afford something, I created it or waited until I could afford it.  I trimmed spending to the basics: no cable, no landline phone and no vacations. My life had to be simplified to accommodate my entrepreneurial lifestyle.

6. What new projects are your working on? 

In the Spring of 2015,  I’m  launching a new collection of carpets, tile, wallpaper and decorative accessories all inspired by my mother’s homeland, the Caribbean island of St. Vincent.  Also, I recently forged

a partnership with Kravet, with whom I will launch a carpet collection in 2016.

7. How can people find and support your work?

You can visit my website:

www.maleneb.com

instagram @malenebcarpets

Pinterest maleneb

twitter @malenebcarpets

Facebook Malene B

Retail Store:

Peace & Riot, Brooklyn, NY

Receive more frank business advice from Malene B. on this amazing panel of entrepreneurial women designers on February 15th in Montclair, NJ.I'll be there.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/heres-her-story-tickets-14902168788

It's so inspiring to see how bootstrapping, dedication, building relationships, and creating a beautiful product line will pan out and bring our entrepreneurial dreams to fruition.
Many, many thanks to Malene B. for sharing her passion with us.

Design Crush: Product Designer Stephen Burks

This NYC-based brother designs it all, and everything that I covet: furniture, lighting fixtures, vessels... all combining modern aesthetics with artisan handicrafts like weaving and crocheting. For someone like me, who has evolved from fashion design to handbag/shoe making to furniture and home goods design, while staying true to my craft as a leather artisan, I am simply in LOVE with his work. His collaborations with international luxury
brands Missoni, Roche Boboi, and Calligaris have made his work sought-after worldwide.

 

Keep up with this creative genius at his website: http://readymadeprojects.com/

BLACK DRESS Exhibition Dedicated to Contemporary Black Fashion Designers at PRATT

Tracy Reese

The groundbreaking work of 10 contemporary New York-based black fashion designers, both established and up-and-coming, will be celebrated in Black Dress: Ten Contemporary Fashion Designers, an unprecedented exhibition that recognizes creativity and entrepreneurship in the field. Organized by Pratt Institute Fashion Professor Adrienne Jones, and timed to coincide with Black History Month and New York Fashion Week, the exhibition will include designs by international fashion superstars Tracy Reese, Byron Lars, Omar Salam and Pratt Institute alumnus Jeffrey Banks as well as a fashion-forward video created specifically for the exhibition by renowned artist and 2013 MacArthur Fellow Carrie Mae Weems.

Presented by Pratt Manhattan Gallery, located at 144 West 14^th Street, 2^nd Floor, the free exhibition runs February 7 to April 26, 2014. It will be celebrated with a public opening reception on February 6 from 6–8 PM.

Black Dress opens at a time when black designers, despite their growing influence and success, remain largely underrepresented in the fashion world. In response, the exhibition was envisioned by curator Jones to create broader awareness of the triumphs and accomplishments that contemporary black designers have achieved in the industry. To illustrate this new emergence, the exhibition space at Pratt Manhattan Gallery will be transformed into a series of Madison-Avenue-style store windows that give each designer a distinct spotlight for their work.

LaQuan Smith

Each store window features bold visions from designers who have influenced contemporary fashion around the world – those who have worked and thrived in the industry for decades, and young designers who are coming to the attention of runway audiences, fashion editors, and consumers. Exhibitor Reese is a board member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and her distinctive designs can be found in both her Tracy Reese and Plenty by Tracy Reese lines. Lars, a pioneering designer and founder of Byron Lars Beauty Mark, was named “Rookie of the Year” by Women’s Wear Daily for his edgy takes on classic American design. Salam is a designer and entrepreneur who founded the Sukeina Fashion House, known for its vivid colors and elegant fabrics. Banks was a protégée of Ralph Lauren and now runs a brand that encompasses menswear, accessories, and home décor.

Stephen Burrows

Byron Lars

Other featured designers are Pratt graduate and former “Project Runway” contestant Samantha Black (Sammy B); celebrated fashion innovator Stephen Burrows; Harlem-based visual artist, designer, and entrepreneur Donna Dove; self-taught Brooklyn designer and former “Project Runway” contestant Epperson; environmentally-conscious designer Michael Jerome Francis; and Queens-based celebrity go-to designer LaQuan Smith.

Ann Lowe

The designers featured in the show draw on a long history of black fashion design in America, which dates back at least as far as the 1860s when Elizabeth Keckley became sole dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln. According to Jones, today’s designs are steeped in the cultural legacies passed down by Keckley and Ann Lowe—who designed Jacqueline Bouvier’s 1953 wedding dress for her marriage to John F. Kennedy—as well as by the tailors and dressmakers who designed and sewed for other politicians, slaveholders, and members of high society in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Jones says the industry’s narrative in America has not included many black names, despite significant contributions on the runways and behind-the-scenes.
“Black designers are emerging on the scene with greater visibility than ever,” said Jones. “Black Dress will highlight the correlation between entrepreneurship, creativity, and locality. These factors work together to create opportunities for designers and their communities to become new destinations where fashion excellence and achievement are measured,” she added.


In conjunction with the exhibition, a panel discussion on the contributions of black designers will be held on March 5 from 6–8 PM in Room 213 at Pratt’s Manhattan campus at 144 West 14^th Street. Panelists include Michaela Angela Davis, a former executive fashion, beauty and culture editor at Essence, founding fashion director at Vibe, and advocate for women's and human rights causes; Constance White, who penned the book Style Noir and has been editor in chief at Essence, fashion editor at Elle, and style director at eBay; Harriette Cole, author and former editor of Ebony, Essence, and Uptown magazines; Elaine Welteroth, beauty and health director at Teen Vogue; and Pratt Institute Fashion professor Adrienne Jones. Fashion guru Walter Greene, fashion editorial director of Profiles98 and consultant to Black Dress, will moderate.
(Excerpt from http://www.pratt.edu/calendar/view/black_dress_exhibition_dedicated_to_contemporary_black_fashion_designers_op/)

Art Smith, Premier Modernist African-American Jewelry Designer

Art Smith, born in Cuba in 1917 to Jamaican parents in Cuba. His family settled in Brooklyn in 1920 and Smith showed artistic talent at an early age. Encouraged to apply to art school, he received a scholarship to Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. There he was one of only a handful of black students, and his advisors tried to steer him towards architecture, suggesting he might readily find a job in the civil sector of that profession. His lack of proclivity for mathematics eventually forced him to abandon this path, however, and he turned to commercial art and a major in sculpture, training that would prove invaluable.

Trained at Cooper Union, Art Smith opened his first shop on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village in 1946. One of the leading modernist jewelers of the mid-twentieth century, Smith was also an active supporter of black and gay civil rights, an avid jazz enthusiast, and a supporter of early black modern dance groups.

He also took a night course in jewelry making at New York University. That and the friendship with Winifred Mason, a black jewelry designer who became his mentor, set him on the course of his adult artistic life. 

Mason had a small jewelry studio and store in Greenwich Village, and Smith became her full time assistant. He subsequently moved from Brooklyn to the Village’s Bank Street. In 1946, Smith opened his own studio and shop on Cornelia Street in the village. But after suffering racial violence in this Italian neighborhood, he soon moved to 140 West Fourth Street just 1/2 block from Washington Square Park, the heart of Greenwich Village where as an openly gay black artist he felt more at home. The new store was better located business-wise and socially, and Smith’s career began to take off.

He began to also sell wholesale to boutiques around the country. Also, he became acquainted with some of the city’s leading black artists including writer James Baldwin, composer and pianist Billy Strayhorn, singers Lena Horne and Harry Belfonte, actor Brock Peters, and expressionist painter Charles Sebree. In the early 1960s, Smith received a commission from the NAACP in 1975 to design a brooch for First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Inspired by surrealism, biomorphicism, and primitivism, Art Smith’s jewelry is dynamic in its size and form. Although sometimes massive in scale, his jewelry remains lightweight and wearable. 

Visit his long-term installation at the Brooklyn Museum; From The Village to Vogue.  Visit his website to learn more about this legendary artisan/designer.

Art Smith (American, born in Cuba, 1917-1982), fashioned modernist pieces from simple metals that achieved new expressions in shape and form.
Visual resonance can be detected between pieces of Smith’s and the works of artists associated with modernist abstraction,
- See more at: http://www.cooperhewitt.org/object-of-the-day/2014/02/03/art-metal-modernist-jewelry-greenwich-village%E2%80%99s-art-smith?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cooper-hewittObjectOfTheDay+%28Cooper-Hewitt%27s+Object+of+the+Day%29#sthash.Bap2WqQG.dpuf

Art Smith (American, born in Cuba, 1917-1982), fashioned modernist pieces from simple metals that achieved new expressions in shape and form.
Visual resonance can be detected between pieces of Smith’s and the works of artists associated with modernist abstraction,
- See more at: http://www.cooperhewitt.org/object-of-the-day/2014/02/03/art-metal-modernist-jewelry-greenwich-village%E2%80%99s-art-smith?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cooper-hewittObjectOfTheDay+%28Cooper-Hewitt%27s+Object+of+the+Day%29#sthash.Bap2WqQG.dpuf

Tasha Hussey, "The Jeweled Life."

Each of us artists and designers are all awaiting that BIG BREAK. Jewelry designer Tasha Hussey discusses her process, her niche, passion, business, and what she needs to BLOW UP. Here is a clip from her documentary, " The Jeweled Life."

Designers to Watch: CUSHNIE ET OCHS

NYFW Feb 8, 2013