Journal

To date we've been slinging bags close to five years. It's easy to remember our frazzled nerves and edgy anticipation when we'd show at markets for the first time. Our initial predawn journey to the Long Beach Antique Market as we're wrapped around three city blocks of a line filled with junkers and their burgeoning wares. We were the big time when accepted to the Melrose Trading Post in Hollywood. I grew up in Hollywood on Western and Santa Monica Blvd. It took over 50 years but it was good to be home.   The bags sold. Monies exchanged hands. Commerce.   A few weeks later back at Long Beach we noticed a gaggle of ladies wearing our bags as they haggled with vendors for better prices. I felt a pride not known. I remember their flock. Five of them, all talking faster than the next--laughing and speaking in slang. They all drank coffee from personalized, overgrown containers.   We all had something in common.  We were all hard to contain. We decided to travel farther throughout the state. The Great Junk Hunt got us up to Sacramento. We worked weekends on Treasure Island in San Francisco.  Then we crossed state lines for the 4th Ave Street Fair in Tucson, Arizona.  Yes, sales are important. There is a bottom line, but the real buzz is returning and seeing our bags and designs in play. Slung over shoulders and coloring the day-to-day workmanlike grind of living large. This is the juice. Next week we are due over thirty new designs. It's a wild ride as boxes are opened, bags are counted then inspected and first impression judgements are made. I've learned not to put much weight in these first looks. It's you. It's you wearing one of ours that speaks to sensibilities and personal style. We cannot wait to see you out in the world.

They tell us the weather is Marbella is dreary: wet, windy and wild. There's chatter of a trip to Southern Cal? When I think of Southern Spain and Marbella, I think of our numerous vacations there and the strength of the sun with its warm, swimming waters.  Even destination locations need a proper cleansing of rain and side-shore winds I think all of all the new bone bag designs we've inundated them with.  They're our partners/mentors in all things BBags. Life is larger than the creation of another bag.  We invite them for a surf at our beloved SanO and then a paddle on the flat water of Baby Beach and harbor waters of Dana Point. We surf. We paddle. We have breakfast at a favorite joint. Just another day at the office......

A picture speaks a thousand words. Meet our friend from Manhattan Beach (pictured below) and our yearly trek to the Manhattan Beach Hometown fair. The South Bay of Manhattan Beach fits: artists, surfers, community, health and a strong sense of what makes business tick. The adjoining photo is a keen insight into the how's and why's of bone bags and its ascending arc.  We know early on within our five year journey that we needed to reach as many towns, cities, festivals and street fairs as time and energy allows. We consistently pound the pavement: Ocean Beach, Hollywood, Roseville, Palm Springs, Dana Point, Tucson Arizona, San Francisco,  and smaller more quaint communities like Valley Center, Upland and Julian to name only a few. Confidence grows. It's time to design our own bags. Our partners have designed bags with us in mind. Their European designs are a mainstay but for bone bags to continually last, expand and thrive we need to make it ours. I grew up in Hollywood and went to high school in coastal Orange County. During the week the ocean is our playground.  Our team of two (my wife and I) have real opinions on the bags to offer.  I take pen to paper. See what flows. Take inventory. It takes over six months but from the rudimentary drawing above, we create the recycled beach bag photographed. The bags arrives in the fall and is a seller during the busy months of October thru December. The details of delivery, doubt and decision are a different and contentious story altogether. Bottom line- we survived the process and created a product that previously did not exist. Then a website. We lean into family member Cousin Evan. He tackles the nuts and bolts whilst tightening the screws of the thing. It's time to make it ours. A vendor friend, Adam of theposterlist recently posted, "Sometimes you just gotta do stuff and figure it out as you go. Just figure it out."  The phone rings. Our partners are looking to button up our spring time designs. If we expect to get delivery in late March or April decisions need to be made. Pippa is in the garden photographing bags to drop on the site. I take the call and the beginning of the next thing to figure out is upon us.........