the Beatrice Blog

If you’ve been lucky enough to create a custom Beatrice with us, you know that we don’t send our forms to their new homes naked – each one comes fashionably styled wearing our signature Beatrice themed scarf!

The dream

For years, I’ve had this dream of partnering up with amazing visual artists who also make handmade fashion to create one-of-a-kind versions of the Beatrice scarf.  Each one would showcase original artwork by the artist and ship with every Beatrice for a limited time. Well, we finally found the perfect partner for our first one!

We’re super excited to announce our very first creative collaboration with Eunice James, co-founder and creative director of Hello!Lucky. Hello!Lucky is a woman-owned and operated design studio based in San Francisco that makes fun, pun-loving stuff for the young and young-at-heart including greeting cards, best-selling children’s books, and home and gift products.

Let me tell you – this collaboration was made to be! Earlier this year, I was preparing for one of my normal pre-scan consultations when I read the address on the confirmation email – it was a hellolucky.com address. Hmmm, could that be the same company that made our amazing illustrated custom letterpress wedding invitations a decade ago in SF?? 

I went digging way back into my email and sure enough, it was the same company! That’s right – one of the co-founders, Eunice James, was getting a custom Beatrice. What a small world it truly is!

We’re super lucky to have already interviewed Eunice on Made By Hand our live interview show. But I thought it would be fun to chat with her again to get the scoop behind her scarf design and the latest on what bright and beautiful things she’s cooking up for Halloween and beyond. 🤩

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Tell us more about your scarf design and how it came to be.

I’ve been really obsessed with modern takes on psychedelic art à la Peter Max. I took up roller skating during the pandemic and there is something about the aesthetic and general vibe of skating that has been really influential of late. So it was a bit of a riff on that whole concept, with a couple of fierce leopards as the jumping off point!

What inspired you to get your hands on a Beatrice Form and how’s that going? 

I have scoliosis so I’m quite lopsided and found it challenging to fit on a standard form so I was so excited when I discovered Beatrice. I got back into sewing during the pandemic and have reached a point where I’d love to start attempting to create pieces of my own design rather than just hacking together various existing patterns.  Additionally, I love costuming and am really looking forward to using my Beatrice to really take those projects to the next level!

What gets you excited about sewing and making in general?

I have a serious addiction – particularly when it comes to costumes.  I pretty much lose my mind every Halloween and have recently been doing dance workshops with https://www.cantstopthedrop.com/ – can fabulous dance costumes be far behind?  I think not!  

But really, I can barely resist any creative endeavor.  I love learning new tricks and techniques, so, needless to say, sewing provides almost endless possibilities in terms of learning new techniques.   

I just love being able to take raw materials to create something gorgeous, and better yet, useful (well, depending on your definition of useful!  I just learned how to make fabulous tulle ruffs and Shakespearean collars and am just dying to explore all the possibilities there – the utility there is perhaps…questionable!)

What’s on your sewing table right now? 

I’m just about to delve into thinking about how to create tarot-inspired circus dance costumes for a workshop (hello, tulle ruffs!). I just discovered https://www.hiwirecostumes.com/. Their blog has some rather dangerous rabbit holes to fall down, like how-to rhinestone a costume which has absolutely blown my mind in terms of inspiration, so I’m debating trying my hand at some vintage inspired leotards.  

I just finished creating a Mushroom King costume for my son – so fun learning how to sew up these mushrooms.

Also contemplating whipping up a hacked version of True Bias’ Nova Jumpsuit and Pattern Fantastique’s Vali dress – I need more time in the day!

Any new creative projects in the works that you can share?

We have a new book – Bananas for You! coming out in December.

We’re also delving into animation!  We’re working on a project with Jim Henson Company and Nickelodeon based on our book Kindness Rules – that’s a whole new frontier and we’re so excited to delve in!  Additionally, there are puzzles and board games in the work, as well as a collection of home goods for kids in development. 

Things are busy, so needless to say it’s pure torture having just received my Beatrice form – I can’t wait to get started on relearning the drafting skills I haven’t thought about in a decade or so! 

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If you’re excited to get your hands on one of these limited-edition scarves designed by Eunice, we’re co-hosting a giveaway with Hello!Lucky in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to our newsletter or IG for updates.

And of course, we’ll be shipping them with Beatrice Forms through the end of the year. Hope you enjoy them!

Yes!! We’ve been waiting for almost a year to finally be able to share this with you! It’s seriously one of the coolest projects we’ve ever been a part of here at Beatrice.

The perfect job for Beatrice

Last year, when the pandemic was in full swing, our friend Mondo hit us up out of the blue. Our hearts did a little flutter! We were a little starstruck having been big fans for ages since seeing him first on Project Runway. He told us he needed to fit a client in a hurry who was nowhere near him in New York City – in fact, she was in a different state.

That client turned out to be none other than Ginger Minj, the multi-talented performer, actor, and singer from Orlando, Florida who you’ve seen compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race many times. We had to pinch ourselves.

Mondo needed our help to solve his fitting dilemma to complete his look for filming asap. We jumped at the chance of course!

A “make it work” moment

Beatrice was the perfect solution. Ginger could scan at home in Florida and then we would pull an all-nighter or two to turn around the form in 72 hours. Not usually doable, but we had to make it happen for Mondo. There just weren’t any other viable options to drape the look and get a great fit (pad a standard form? Um, I don’t think so.) Even with that crazy fast manufacturing time, he’d still have only a few days to create his vision once Ginger’s Beatrice made it to NYC.

Thanks to Ginger and her willingness to wing it, she produced a fantastic scan for us using her own clothing. Unfortunately, we had a little snafu with the expedited shipping over the weekend, which cut into Mondo’s design time. Arrrg! It was a total nail-biter, but Mondo pulled it off despite it all.

And who can deny the results! Congrats to all who made it happen!

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Our goal is to get a Beatrice into the hands of everyone who’d like one. Right now, that’s not possible. With just the two of us and one cutting machine, Nate and I can only make so many each month in our home workshop. So, we’re off to the races to expand our production capability as fast as we can.

Like we mentioned last month, we’re interviewing candidates for our production assistant role which is going extremely well. It never ceases to amaze me how many creative, motivated people are out there, especially in the sewing world! We’re hoping to introduce our new team member to you all by early August.

On the new production studio front…

We’ve assembled most of the furniture and purchased the new sewing machines and equipment. I’m still waiting on our custom cutting mat which I’m SUPER excited about. I will upgrade my personal setup with one if we end up really liking it…no more cobbled together, running off the end of the mat situation for me, WOOHOO!

The plan over the next few weeks is to move our finishing and shipping operation over to the new space to see what we’re missing in terms of supplies/equipment. Then we can sort it all out before we start training our new team member. Lots of things happening at once.

Machine #2

Until recently, having only one cutting machine was fine. It’s essentially a well-performing prototype that Nate built in the early days that got our company off the ground. Now, having just this one machine is a liability. It’s time to take everything we’ve learned with that awesome little prototype and build the next generation.

To that end, Nate’s been designing a new, mo’ betta CNC that’s got all kinds of improvements specifically for cutting foam bodices. The new bells and whistles will make production a lot easier but also just having TWO machines (and later this year, THREE) will make all the difference in increasing capacity since Nate can run them in parallel.

Nate placed his first part orders today and can’t wait to get started on the build in the coming weeks. Like most big moves at Beatrice Forms, it’s a family affair: Nate’s dad Larry will be helping with the assembly and I’ve been recruited for my type-A soldering skills. We’re hoping to have machine #2 online in a month or so.

Once we’re done, I’ll have lots of pictures for you!