Mom Style File Informants Rachel and Tiffany from {made} Community

VITALS

Ages: 33
Hometown: Burlington
Website: www.madecommunity.com
Style ID: City Gypsy
Describe your style in one word:  Natural

 

Share with our readers the inspiration and story behind Made Community:

{made} has been an evolution whose seeds were planted in high school weekend’s spent garage saling. We have been finding things to make new from things we find since forever. Now we just have a name for it.  We knew we wanted to do something creative for ourselves but that would also help people in our community too. Our giveback completes the cycle of good karma sourcing.

For our 9% we always pick a local partner. We started out focusing mostly on women’s initiatives in our area and have continued to pick partner’s whose causes we both identify with and believe in! Right now we are all about healthy wholesome food. In Iowa, we have the lushest soil and yet we have populations who never see fresh produce or know how to prepare meals from it. To date, we worked with the DVIP, the Dream Center, and most recently with Table to Table.

 

 

Where do you find your style inspiration?

Vintage pieces.

 

How do you find the materials for you collections?

We love to go on the hunt – estate sales, vintage resale shops. When we need to buy new, we source USA-made whenever possible.

 

Describe the design process?

Sometimes it starts with a color, or a photo, or a bead and then just keeps building. Its almost always iterative. Our first version of something is never really our last. We are constantly improving each time.

 

 

What is your favorite piece you designed?

Rach used to make these Big Bead Theory necklaces. They were random mixes of colored and textured vintage beads of all sizes. It was always hard for her to part with those once she designed them. Tiff makes these Generator Hoops that are her own style, but also are one of our most popular earring styles, that were named by her daughter.

 

Have you had any flops?

Hmmm. Hard to pick just one. We had this recycled coke-bottle glass bead that we loved and stocked up on. It was too heavy for a lot of our clients. So we still have a lot of those beads around the studio still that we’d like to re-work one day. Oops.

 

So, I fell in love with your Love Bird necklace {no pun intended}. Rumor is there’s a story behind this necklace.

The love birds have been really fun for us. We came across them last winter in a batch of donated vintage pieces from a friend of ours. Tiff is really into the power of feng shui and saw these peach birds as a cool charm necklace that just might have some magic to them. (Peach is the color for attraction). We started giving them to friends who were on the dating scene and the stories that came back were too good to ignore. The rule is once you find your love, you have to pass the necklace on to another friend who is looking for one. By now, we have a few flocks of love birds flying around the country doing their thing. Very cool.

 

 

What is your favorite accessory {i.e.: rings, necklaces, etc}

Tiff: I love big earrings.

But as one of our customers once said, rings and bracelets are the accessories you get to wear for you (i.e. the only ones you can see at all times.) So layering up bracelets is a fun way to play with color and texture.

 

What are you favorite materials to work with?

Tiff: Silver

 

Who is your design / style inspiration?

No one person in particular. We love contrasts: between delicate and sexy. Messy and well-kept.

 

When styling accessories, do you have any style advice?

Make whatever you put on mean something to you.

 

Where do you shop?

REVIVAL!

 

Last piece of advice … Experiment till you find what feels right for you. And then get it in every color.

 

Head over to Melissa’s and read the rest of our Interview, and make sure to follow Rach and Tiff so you can see what they will be making next.

Twitter #IGOTMADE
Instagram
Facebook

 

Thanks so much Rachael and Tiffany for sharing the story of {made} Community with our readers, I can’t wait to see what you create next.