INSPIRATION STATEMENT
Hello Summer, is that you?
Summer is in full swing here in the Wood River Valley. The town is alive with activities of all sorts!
Sun Valley does a fantastic job of creating summer programs that have something for everyone: Ballet Sun Valley, Sun Valley Music Festival, Sun Valley on Ice, Jazz in the Park… you get the picture. Most of these events take place in the open air, so each venue is surrounded with the breathtaking backdrop of our beautiful hills and mountains. Somehow, everything sounds and looks better in nature.
Wayne, Trout, and I are well aware how lucky we are to live with the many spoils of a destination location that people come from all over the world to enjoy. Their vacation is our every day. It just goes to show, if you have something beautiful to present to the world, you can take it anywhere, and we do!
May the art of good dressing never escape the pleasure of your everyday.
Dress your best and be ready for everything and anything, Baby!
MEET THE MAKERS SUMMER SERIES
Ain't nothing like the real thing, Baby!
We started our "Meet the Makers" in-store series more than 10 years ago, to both showcase the artistic integrity of some of our favorite designers, and to give our customers and designers an opportunity to meet one another, and learn about the creative process of both design and style.
The current retail climate must embrace the growing dominance of e-commerce. It is hard to deny or compete with the ease and convenience of shopping online. As consumers, we can shop from anywhere and anytime the mood should strike. How easy it is to find yourself scrolling and trolling your favorite brands and influencers. With a click of a button, your retail fix is satisfied. Days later, BAM!, the product is at your front door. However, Brick and Mortar still holds the most powerful trump card that e-commerce can never compete with: the sense of TOUCH.
Humans are wired with a remarkable sensory system that helps us navigate the world we live in. Touch is thought to be the first sense that humans develop. Touch is essential for our survival. It allows us to explore and interact with our environment as well as being very important to our overall well-being. A computer can never replicate the pleasure or act of touching something like fabric. Sight comes into play when exploring, experiencing, and interacting in a well curated, high-design retail space in person. It allows us to spontaneously react to our surroundings in real time.
It then becomes the job of the merchants and retail owners to provide creative and visual experiences that engage the customer in the store. Our strategy has been to create as many opportunities as we can that require real time engagement, while allowing our customers to love, appreciate, and understand the industry and the artist we represent. We are so fortunate that we live in such a beautiful place that entices our artist to come to our area, and meet our customers. These meet-and-greets are beneficial to all of us. As a buyer, it helps me understand the taste and style of our customers. I observe with a keen eye what our customers are drawn to in a collection. The designer gets to also see how different the taste and needs of the stores and customers are in the different regions of the country. The customer gets to see and hear from the designers as to the inspiration and motivation for their brands. The whole dang process is a WIN for all of us.
Sooooo, I hope you will take advantage of the many opportunities we have presented to you in our Baby & Company community to support, love, and respect the hard work and dedication of our many talented and unique artists and makers.
Creating your own brand is no easy task! It is due to a passion for creating something beautiful to be worn, and loved in the market place that is life. Because as they say: “When you look good, you feel good.”
MALIA MILLS
Malia Mills - Designer Reception Meet and Greet July 16, from 4:00 - 6:00p, at the Galleria
Trunk Show Personalized Swimsuit fittings: July 16 - 18, 11:00 - 6:00p
Malia Mills has long been thought of as the Swimwear Guru.
Her passion for making the best fitting swimwear in the market is why she holds the title of Guru. With the addition of her contemporary ready-to-wear collection, Malia Mills has become a lifestyle brand that everyone can relate to. We are proud to host Malia and Carol Mills, and their team, to introduce their latest collection to Sun Valley. Our customers will also get the rare opportunity to get personalized help from Malia and the team to find the perfect fit for a product that can be very hard to achieve without an expert on-hand to guide you through the process. None better than the designer herself.
Don’t miss this incredible presentation, and a chance to meet the team and find out what makes Malia Mills a leader in this field.
Sign up for personalized fitting, Space is limited!
For more about Malia Mills:
When asked where the “genius” for bra-sized swimwear came from, Malia tells it like this: "It seemed insane to me that swimwear was sold as a set; with the same size top and bottom clipped to one hanger, since none of us are built that way. I couldn’t imagine having to buy a denim shirt every time I picked up a pair of new jeans. Lingerie made so much sense; each style engineered to fit a specific bra size and a variety of bottoms to choose from if you needed one. but for sure this idea wasn’t born out of thin air, here’s the long-winded version:
I grew up in Honolulu where swimwear was our daily uniform, each new swimsuit like a rite of passage. My mom forbade my older sisters from wearing bikinis thinking they were too bare. She finally relented when our neighbor gave me a yellow bikini for my 10th birthday and my sisters howled in protest.
At 11 my tween dreams came true when I bought a long-coveted bikini from the trendy swim store called Splash in Waikiki. My mom took me to pick out my very own bikini when I turned 12; the tops were all too full for my flat chest. But I was on a mission to make one mine so I picked out a baby blue and pink striped set, took it home and hand sewed a seam through the top to remove the shape. Prescient, no?
The swimwear education continued in Paris where I met Maryvonne Herzog, who made custom swimwear out of her apartment. We bonded over my passion for swimwear and my very shitty French! Fast forward to 1990, where I was working as a design assistant at Jessica McClintock in San Francisco, when my college roommate called. She was working on the swimsuit issue at Sports Illustrated and said, “I know you’ve always been mad about swimwear — this sounds crazy but you should make us some suits for our shoot.” I left work that day and visited every store in SFO that sold swimwear and that’s when the light bulbs went off.
I spent the next two weeks making patterns and sewing suits for a long shot at Sports Illustrated. Lightning struck when Jule Campbell, the then Editor in Chief of the swimsuit issue, called me at work and said, “We love the suits and we’re taking them on our shoot.” I hung up the phone, got up from my chair, met with Jessica McClintock and gave my two weeks notice. She asked me what I was going to do and I said, “I’m driving to New York and I think I’m going to be a swimwear designer.”
BRAZEAU TRICOT
Designer Meet and Greet Reception with Laurie Brazeau and Andrea Zuckerman: July 31, 5:00 - 7:00PM at the Galleria
Trunk Show: Aug 1 - 5
I was first introduced to Laurie Brazeau in 2020 when Wayne and I decided to close our Seattle store and make the move to Sun Valley.
It was the COVID summer of 2020, and there were no markets or shows taking place for me to buy a Fall / Winter collection, in order to open our Ketchum Store.
A friend in the industry said: “I have a friend who just launched a beautiful knitwear line that I think would be perfect for Baby.”
She introduced Laurie and I via Zoom, and we became fast allies, and got excited to do business together. Laurie helped me put together a stunning Fall / Winter collection to premier at Baby & Company for the opening of our new Ketchum location. The Brazeau Tricot collection fit perfectly with the ethos and spirt of the Baby & Company brand; Soft, luxurious, romantic, practical. The color palettes were both dreamy and wearable. The collection fit into the lifestyle of both our Sun Valley clientele and our faithful base as well.
Laurie and Andrea have continued to advance the collection forward each season with dreamy and easy to wear silhouettes, incredible colors and a variety of patterns and textures to make each collection a stand out. This talented design team keeps me excited to see what is being cooked up and imaged for future collections.
Laurie is dynamic and passionate about knitwear design and fashion. Andrea has a natural instinct for style and sublime details. Together this dynamic duo will help you understand what makes their collection such a standout in the industry.
Laurie Brazeau, born in Los Angeles and raised in Oaxaca, Mexico, became enthralled with the fine-gage knits while living in France. Infinitely more glamorous, elegant, and diverse than the pervading sweater knits of America, they opened her eyes to the possibility of reinterpreting fashion usually showcased in woven styles through comfortable, wearable knits. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing in Los Angeles, she founded her first label, Brazeau Tricot in 1991. Five years later she debuted Laurie B.
LA native, Andrea Zuckerman came on board in 2018, and with her came a new fresh outlook. She is an experienced Interior Designer based in Malibu, celebrated for her elegant but fun, eclectic style. Her work is seen in houses from San Francisco to Mexico. She is an excellent curator, and is able to bring her “Quiet Style” to the designs of Brazeau Tricot. The partnership took off and together the ladies have gone from strength to strength.
The current line, Brazeau Tricot, launched Fall 2018 featuring women’s knits, luxurious silks and 100% finest cashmere. The styles are simultaneously forward-thinking and vintage-inspired. As luxurious to the hand as they are to the eye, each of Brazeau’s pieces are made from the finest yarns and natural fibers, including combed cotton, cashmere blends and washed silk with cotton. Because Brazeau believes that fit makes all the difference, each of their pieces are easy to wear, fun, flirty, and anything but basic.