Latest News from the Audra Jean Etsy Shop

A number of people have asked me recently if I'm still making hats for the Etsy shop. The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no, so I figured now would be a good time to give an update on the shop and highlight a few of the things that we've been working on.

Photos: Blioux photography, www.blioux.com

Mark and I have felt for awhile now that my hats and his leather accessories didn't mesh very well in the shop. The problem however, is that once you have an Etsy shop you cannot simply change the shop's name (one of the many idiotic things about Etsy that drives me nuts). As Mark's leather wares have grown in popularity, we were hesitant to move his stuff to a new shop and potentially lose our established customer base. And since the vast majority of the shop customers are there for the leather goods, we decided to make the existing shop exclusively his, even though it's still called Audra Jean. I do generate designs from time to time, but my biggest contributions to the shop these days are the photographs of the pieces on the dress form, and ones where I'm modeling the stuff (although I'd like to think I'm also Mark's muse). As my hat listings have expired, I simply haven't renewed them as we continue to think about the best option for migrating them somewhere else.

 Modeled by Nikki Dubose, Stylist: Francy Freixas

For the time being I do still take hat orders via the Audra Jean Etsy shop when they crop up. Sometimes people will dig up a past hat I've made via an expired or sold listing, and sometimes I get requests for custom work. Lately I've been doing lots of custom work for friends, neighbors, etc. which is always fun. Hats are a tough item to sell online; many people these days are not used to wearing hats and are uncomfortable buying one without seeing how it looks on them. It is likely that if/when I launch a new online shop it will focus mainly on fascinators and mini hats, which are one size fits all. In the meantime I'll be looking for brick and mortar shops in San Francisco (I do still sell a few things at Dark Garden) where I can sell my other designs.

Photography by Nick Mitchell
Hair by Angela Mitchell at Alter Ego Hair Design
Model Morgana www.threnodyinvelvet.com

In the meantime, Mark has steadily been building his portion of the shop into quite a business. He's worked with a number of professional stylists and photographers, from which we've gotten some beautiful images of his work modeled by the gorgeous ladies you see here. His work has appeared in Auxiliary Magazine, on Stylecaster, and most recently in Factice Magazine. Several of his pieces were also used in a theatrical performance called Secret Show, featuring Cirque du Soleil dancers. Click here to watch the amazing trailer for this performance; a couple of promo photos are below.

Photos: Anna Sweet

Mark has also caught the eye of a number of bloggers with vastly different personal styles. If you read Megan Mae you'll have seen her recently sporting a fabulous military + feminine look incorporating Mark's Genevieve bronze underbust harness. Darling MJ over at Dreaming Spires and Old Car Tyres has both the Jane Doe and Zoe harnesses, which she incorporates into her daily wear. Joy at Just Like Sushi sports the pretty Jane Light caramel-colored harness, our own beloved Sal wears the black Selena harness, and the lovely ladies at Singapore-based Monoxious have impeccably styled the Raven cross-strap harness, the Jane Doe, and the Annabelle double belt harness. The image below, featuring a custom piece Mark made, appeared in the street style section of the Dutch newspaper het Parool. This is just to name a few. It's amazing to see how many ways people style these pieces.

photography: marc van der zouw (Thanks, Suz!)

Finally, Mark has created a Facebook page, where you can stay up to date on what's happening at the shop, see customer appreciation photos, and so on. We actually need to migrate it to a different account so that the page has more functionality, but for now you can find us here. Don't ask me about Twitter; as talented as Mark is at working with leather, he's terrible at self-promotion, so it's taken us until now just to get the Facebook page going. I'm certainly not holding my breath for any tweets.

Stop by the shop and check out Mark's latest items, and be sure to "Like" us on Facebook. Stay tuned for further shop developments!