XOXO Gossip Girl

Here it is, in all its rich, deep-brown, giant glory: Serena from Gossip Girl sporting our Corcovado Large Turnlock Tote in Cordovan rather stylishly in a recent Gossip Girl episode. Rumor has it there are a few more Hayden-Harnett handbags floating around the Gossip Girl coterie; let us know if you spot any!

Get Yourself Together...our fall'08 playlist!

hmmm...woah! whatthewhat?

I swear I found this image when doing a google cover art image search for "the rapture; onto the tracks" and, uhm, wow...this very interesting depiction of our current president popped up. Gotta love the pearls that fall into your hands.

Anyhow...I just finished the fall08 playlist for the design:shop and thought I'd share the lovely love that is a dense/nutty/dancey complex mix of The Rapture, Dukes of the Stratosphear, The Mamas and the Papas, Rogue Wave, The Servants, Fleet Foxes, The Rolling Stones, Wings, and Stereo Total.

"All over the Place" would be a very apt title for this playlist, but I felt The Rapture captured my intended sentiment 100% with "Get Yourself Together"...a great anthem for these days. If we truly want change, we are 100% responsible to make it happen. We is me, you, us, citizens and countrymen, global neighbors, friends and foes, Republicans, Independents, Democrats, and Liberals...why can't we all be friends? Time to shake...shake...shake...shake it all up? Yes.

There are those who say that fashion should never be a platform for personal views. I disagree.

What is fashion BUT personal expression and a culmination of art, culture, personality, and a societal snapshot of our lives and times (+ a burning human desire to not be nude)?

1) Get Yourself Together/The Rapture
2) A Sun, A Small Star/The Servants
3) It's My Turn/The Servants
4) Plaid Lined Jacket/Tom Brosseau
5) Play with Fire/The Rolling Stones
6) Kicking the Heart Out/Rogue Wave
7) Army of Me/Bjork
8) 12:30 (young girls are coming to the canyon)/The Mamas & The Papas
9) Angie/The Rolling Stones
10) Sitting By the Riverside/The Kinks
11) Launderette/Vivian Goldman
12) Mind Your Own Business/Delta 5
13) Falcon Settles Me/Rogue Wave
14) Down For So Long/The Rapture
15) Canadian Girl/The Walkmen
16) Love Will/Suburban Kids with Biblical Names
17) Parakit/Suburban Kids with Biblical Names
18) This is Not a Test/She & Him
19) What Can I Do?/The Rosebuds
20) Shake Our Tree/The Rosebuds
21) Every Moment/Rogue Wave
22) Man-Revolutionary/Rogue Wave
23) Heart of the Country/Paul & Linda McCartney
24) Guns of Brixton/Nouvelle Vague
25) 1982/Miss Kittin and the Hacker
26) Glad to Be Unhappy/The Mamas and The Papas
27) Don Gon Do It/The Rapture
28) Mykonos/Fleet Foxes
29) LES Artistes/Santogold
30) Lights Out/Santogold
31) What in the World/Dukes of the Stratosphear
32) Shiny Cage/Dukes of the Stratosphear
33) You/Delta 5
34) Eyes On the Prize/M.Ward
35) Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Blood/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
36) This Land is Your Land/Bob Dylan live version (orginal by Woody Guthrie)

Bon Voyage to Ben's brother Sam who is moving to San Francisco (and is becoming quite the investigative public radio journalist). Hope to see you soon on the west side.

-Toni

Word is... Hayden-Harnett on Gossip Girl Tonight

Here at the HH warehouse it isn't rare to find oneself in the midst of a conversation over the previous nights cable lineup. Sadly, with only 4 channels in my apartment I rarely get to join in on the fun. So this weekend when the weather looked gloomy, my roommate Ashley (a fellow HH-er) and I decided to binge on some DVDs.

As Ashley looked for deep, intriguing movies, I stood in the aisle known as 'sitcom heaven' pondering what season to add to my collection first. I decided on Gossip Girl -- I had never seen it, but had heard all the rage, seen the Times Square billboards, & even have a male friend who Tivos it religiously.

As Ashley and I settled down this Saturday afternoon we had no idea what we were in for. Needless to say, I didn't leave my house all weekend... hardly even left my couch. I hit the ignore button on my phone, neglected to study for a microeconomics test: it was "XOXO Gossip Girl" until 2am Monday morning rolled around. As we finished the last episode we sunk into a funk: what were we going to do without GG?

But there's good news: a new season has started and an episode is on tonight. And then the word came through: Hayden-Harnett will be on Gossip Girl tonight!! Serena van der Woodsen will be sporting the Corcovado Tote in Cordovan! So, at 8pm tonight, Ashley and I will be on the edge of our couch looking to spot the Wyeth on our new favorite show. Hope to see you there! -- Melissa


Serena also loves our Clara Flap Bag in Black Zeus Patent.

Sneak Peek! Our Spring'09 "MUSE" collection

Hurrah, NYC fashion week! We're just starting to seriously plan our Fall wardrobe and it's already time to consider spring dresses, sandals, and bags for 2009. Yep, the fashion carrot is ever-dangling and looks quite juicy for spring.

Our big news? We're launching shoes and swimwear fit for the muses of Xanadu. My ultimate dream is that Olivia Newton-John would arrive in full Kira/Xanadu regalia and shop in our Greenpoint store and serenade us all...we could rollerskate and hold hands. Olivia is probably the first true muse that I ever latched onto and I'm positive that I've watched the movie Xanadu at least 84 times. Oh, to be that blonde, Australian, and sing-songy. She even has perfect armpits...sigh.


-view the accessory preview video below



more spring'09 apparel images to come. time to start working on fall'09!

Past Presence - Fall 2008 Video - Enjoy!

View our Fall 2008 Lookbook

HH <3's Mizz Greenpoint

The first annual Mizz Greenpoint pageant was a total success! Our darling Mimi placed as first-runner up...not bad for a pageant novice.

Check out the Style.com article for the down and dirty details of the event.

Check out the video about the blood, sweat, and talent it takes to become a champion.

More to come...but for now, we'd like to thank Eric Majorelles and Kat Hennerty of East Coast Aliens and Brooklyn Glamour for a smashing success of an event.

BEHIND THE SCENES -- FALL 2008

This is my first blog post ever, so I'm sorry if it doesn't sound bloggy enough. I wanted to give everyone a little sneak peak of what the Fall08 Catalog will be like. Today I will post some backstage shots. Tune back for some of the real deal shots next week

The shoot was great and lots of fun (and lots of bagels). The models, Monica and Masha were wonderful and the whole team worked really hard. Kat, a very good friend and amazing photographer & cinematographer let us use her family's house in Great Neck which worked out perfect for the shoot. hope you enjoyed the post. if you didn't then just pretend you did, because its my first one and i'm sensitive and self conscious. au revoir -mimi

it's all about the shoes...

ladies love shoes. men love nice shoes on ladies. good shoes make life worth living, especially in nyc. hayden-harnett <3's shoes. 211 franklin street is shoeville, with no exiles.

ohmydog...everyone at hh is 100% freakily obsessed with shoes, me included. every time the ups guy drops by, 8 out of 10 times, there's a fresh pair of shoes being delivered to some lucky lady who's hoping that "this is the pair"...the magic pair that are super-stylish, comfortable, well-made, and not a total rent buster. the elusive footwear "one".

so, what to do about this all-encompassing problem? bags we have. check. awesome bags for both fashion and travel. apparel we have. check. great dresses and outerwear that we all love and help us refrain from nudity.

shoes were the only thing missing from the mix. time to design some shoes, obviously. so i did. i sat down on saturday, 4/27 and started sketching exactly what i was looking for. style. comfort. personality. crafty leather love. wearability with an edge. kicks with style and soul. interesting to look at. easy to love.

what came of the saturday sketch session? a collection of shoes for hayden-harnett that will launch for spring 2009. nine styles that range from a slide to a zippered cuff boot that can be worn over the knee. all in our signature soft, natural leathers we use on the handbags. seven weeks later, we have a fully sampled line and we're sending out linesheets.

we will be introducing our shoes to buyers during the collections at WSA in the venetian hotel at the end of july. super. hurrah! all the hh ladies love the shoes and i'm now testing out the first pair of personals that i ordered for myself, the iskia link wedge. they float around my foot. they are easy to wear with everything. they are badass and woven with a covered leather wedge heel. they rock and they roll. even ben likes them.

further sneak peeks of hayden-harnett shoes to come.
--toni

Shakira, Shakira! These Wrists Don't Lie

We can't lie, these wrists are perfection. Since we first heard Shakira, she's been something of an H-H obsession. We were floored when we discovered she rocked our Ramone and Joey cuff on her latest tour.

Fall 2008 Collection - Preview

Recently we launched our Fall 2008 collection with a little get-together at our new showroom. We thought it was time to offer everyone a peek at some of the styles we've been super excited about. We have a bunch of new and updated bag styles, fabulous new leathers and colors, and our best collection of dresses and outerwear yet. And it will all be available this coming July.



I think Toni describes the collection best: "I was inspired by the contradiction of the natural and unnatural: the man-made vs. nature. Vivid color welling up from and inky, dark background; metallics and slick patents are used for emphasis and pops of texture and unexpected color.



"Prints are inspired by nature and folk weaving, but then reworked digitally to read as modern, almost ghostly. The overall mood for silhouette in both apparel and accessories is about versatility and low-key luxury ... all the items are intended to transition easily from day to night. Design is inspired by both art-deco and primitive design as it would exist in hybrid for a modern world."

"Green is Good" on Fox TV

Fox 23 was Ben's Fox station growing up in upstate New York, so he was particularly tickled, uh, green that they chose to feature our "Green is Good" Tote as part of their focus on environmentally friendly fashion.

Hayden-Harnett: On the Street

Check out our Gwenievere Cape, seen "On the Street" from Sunday's New York Times Style Section.

Viva Tropicalia! Spring/Summer 2008 Lookbook Movie

rhumba, samba, frevo. hayden-harnett's s/s08 collection is deeply inspired by a love for the passionate arts and culture of 60's brazil. vivid color, bold shapes, and hand-crafted detailing reflect the cultural flashpoint of tropicalismo. so, put on some caetano veloso or os mutatnes on the hi-fi, kick back and watch the surf roll in. remember, it is forbidden to forbid. from corcovado to sao paulo, we hope there's something perfeito for the artisan in you. view the catalog

--Toni

Two New Things to Give Thanks For

This might be a little shallow, but we indulge from time to time. Of course we all have things to be thankful for this season, whether it is our family and loved-ones, good health or a recent recovery, the beauty and bounty of nature and the goodwill of most of us. But we're also pretty excited by two new items we've launched on our website today!

First is the exquisitely subtle metallic Rizzo motorcycle jacket in Bronze, which has arrived just in time to replace the black Rizzo, which sold out almost instantly:


Second is the to-die-for Hudson Triple-Strap Satchel in mouth-watering Bruciato, a classic and eminently useful shape in a rich holiday color, perfect for hot cocoa weather, turkey, and later, mistletoe:


P.S. Still looking for the perfect holiday gift? We're now offering gift-certificates in any denomination that are good on-line and at our Brooklyn design:shop.

Gift Guide Preview: Gifts for the Geek

Not sure what to get for yourself, your mom, your friend, your significant other? Well, we're about to launch our gift-guide for the holiday season, with loads of ideas that are categorized by price, staff picks, and by personality -- looking for the perfect gift for your favorite fashionable geek girl? Well here they are.

P.S. Look for the icon on every product page to start making and sharing your own wishlist for the season.

Styling Contest: Win $1,000 Gift Certficiate

Polyvore.com and Hayden-Harnett have teamed up to present a fabulous contest, and you could win $1,000 gift-certificate to haydenharnett.com.

Polyvore is a the new website that allows you to put together your favorite items, and show off your styling skills. We think some of the best stylists out there can be found on Polyvore.com. Create an outfit using Hayden-Harnett's classic designs and you could win a $1,000 gift-certificate at our online store. 2nd prize is a $200 gift-certificate, and the 3rd prize is $50.

Would you rather accent an outfit with one of our great handbags, or wrap yourself in one of our printed dresses? You decide, and the community votes. The contest is open for two weeks, and thereafter, the winner will be decided. Good fashion, and good luck.

Three Chord Fashion

The Ramone Studded Cuff brings me back to the dawn of the New York punk scene, to a time when I wore a similar bracelet with leopard print T-shirt and black Levis. It's hard to believe it now, but at the time punk rock was still shocking. You could easily recognize like-minded people who were dressed as outrageously as yourself. The music was the glue. The Ramones had stripped rock'n'roll down to its three-chord roots and re-invented the three-minute song after a decade of twenty-minute guitar solos.

I was thrilled when I entered art school in 1978 and found this burgeoning music scene in progress. A scene as scary as it was invigorating. I loved the Ramones, and to this day they have remained my favorite band. That Hayden-Harnett has come out with the Ramone Cuff, the Joey, the Ramone Demi and the CBGB studded belt to their Fall collection is a very welcome tribute to a great era in fashion and music.

--John Comito (john @ haydenharnett.com)

Cape Town

Our Gwenievere Wool Cape is surely a statement piece. It's a far more stylish option for keeping warm than your standard coat. But it demands an understated bag to accompany it. We recommend the Bernardin Day Bag in Yam -- great because it doesn't demand a free shoulder, is big enough to carry all your necessities without competing with the coat, while its pop color adds more warmth. Perfect for the Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons!

Congratulations to Hayden-Harnett Customer Kara Goucher

On Saturday, Kara Goucher made history by winning the first ever bronze medal for the United States in the women's 10,000 meter race at the World Track and Field Championship in Osaka, Japan. She also made Hayden-Harnett history by being the first medal-winning athlete to sport Hayden-Harnett. We are thrilled and honored to have shared in Kara's moment by accompanying her (in the form of our Mercer Cuff Bracelet) to the medal stand, and we wish her many many victories to come.

To read more about Kara's historic victory, you should click here. Congratulations Kara!

Jenny McCarthy in Hayden-Harnett

Jenny McCarthy strolling along in our Sophia Babydoll Dress in Yellow. From Redbook Magazine.

Artist's Vision: Robert Gullie

Photo of Hayden-Harnett bags by Robert Gullie whose work can be found at the Amrose + Sable gallery in Albany, New York.

Spring is in the Air

Today we had a tantalizing hint of the spring to come, as temperatures rose into the positively balmy 40s here in Brooklyn, and the sun shone down on rivulets of melting snow, and we shed our jackets temporarily. We only got to enjoy the beautiful weather fleetingly, as we ran our separate ways from one place to another. We are as busy as bees at Hayden-Harnett. You'll notice in the past few months we haven't been updating our photojournals or posting much on our blog.

You will notice some changes, however, if you glance around our website :-) Our beautiful new spring collection of handbags is launched, with terrific new styles - the Suki Ladybag and Barnard Crossbody pre-eminent among them. We've also launched the Paule Marrot Editions by Hayden-Harnett collection, featuring the modern yet timeless print designs of Alsatian artist Paule Marrot. We would be remiss if we didn't mention our skinny belts riffing off our signature handbag styles and bringing in some charm of their own.

These days anomolous weather is both more frequent, and more jarring, as increased awareness about the dangers of human propelled climate change puts us all on edge about the future. That's why we launched the "Friends of Al" tote last month - to raise awareness about global warming, and to actually do something about it. We've already raised thousands of dollars and planted over fifteen-hundred trees, and made countless new friends.

Meanwhile, Toni has been hard at work designing our Fall 2007 collection. We've just set up our showroom with the new collection, which is our best yet! The colors are staggeringly beautiful, and too achingly perfect to describe, and we've developed some new custom hardware elements we're all longing to start carrying. And just wait until you look inside...

Oh - have you noticed? We've taken "handbags + accessories" our of the website logo, and added a new button - "apparel". That's right. We've just launched our first ready-to-wear collection, designed by the fantabulous Sonia A. We have trendy A-line dresses, stunning short and long jackets, a spring parka to die for, and countless other items. Keep checking back as we continue to refine the apparel section of the website. And we're pretty excited, because we've just had the apparel featured in Elle Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and now Daily Candy!

Worried about ordering from the web? Don't - we've got a 15 day easy return policy, and we're sure you won't want to send it back. But maybe you really just want to see it in person and get to try it on? You're in luck, because we're in the middle of opening our very first store, in Greenpoint! Toni is ordering wallpaper samples, and Ben is supervising the construction, and we should be open in just a few more weeks. Thanks for checking in, and keep in touch. H-H.

Spring '07: Just Around the Corner!

we're working away on getting the spring 2007 collection finished up and ready to show for september market. we have SO MANY great new bags and items coming...i can't wait until we get the sampling finished up.

new news: for spring'07, we're launching a fabulous (but casual) line of apparel. most of the dresses are very lightweight jersey. the main idea being that they travel and wear so well. seriously, you can roll our clothing up so small and throw it into your bag. change into them at the end of the day, and voila, you're ready to hit the town! i really think our fans are going to love the new line.

we're also launching belts for SP07...we have one style, the HARNESS belt, which will be available for autumn/winter'06. comes in whiskey, malachite, and vintage black.

hayden-harnett has asked two amazing new designers to join us (great friends of ours)...we're growing and couldn't have found more talented people to join our design team. sonia agostino, our apparel design director, who thoroughly kicks cold corporate design's ass. also, hanging out in our bklyn offices...madeleine (mimi) ayres, an incredibly talented graphic designer and artist. sonia is from NJ, and mimi is from argentina.

SPRING 2007 INSPIRATION:

MARK ROTHKO (illustrative work and color field)
BIBA
OSSIE CLARK
PARIS in the 60's (superb book...great for mood and silhouette)
EQUESTRIAN TACK & HARDWARE
BRIGHT ENAMELS
(slick finish/handmade and modern handcraft feeling)
TACKY 80's geometric plastic jewelry in vivid colors
(LOVE how hard they tried...)

MICROSCOPIC FOCUS on materials and unique usage/effects

UNEXPECTED ways of combining color/pattern that feel fresh and vivid or, on the oppostie scale, nearly invisible (black is out of the picture after the A/W06 goth aftermath)

MIX of color and pattern grounded with neutrals
CLASSIC silhouettes with a large nod to vintage late 50's early 60's...time to clean up our acts and "be good" as we prepare for unsteady govt, global warming, and uncertain economy.

BOLD DIRECTNESS and romantic escapism/capriciousness will be the two opposing moods that reflect our current schizo world psychology.

Above all else, a vintage and handworked feeling with modern sensibilities
of function and universal style...any woman can find pieces she loves and can work into her wardrobe.

more later ... over and out!
cross posted on Hayden-Harnett's myspace

Bag-O-Scope

Having trouble deciding on a bag? Ever wonder what the stars have to say about what handbag you should carry? Ponder no further. Hayden-Harnett has done the work for you. We've pulled down the old astrological tomes off the top shelf, blown off the dust and pored over charts and numbers. We've tracked the constellations in the sky, and noticed a lot of them actually seem to be carrying handbags. Don't delay, enter your birthdate in our cosmological calculator, and find out which bags are right for you, today! Bag-O-Scope. Illustrated by Irit Baniel.

"Like the pyramids?"

Every morning, we wake up to NPR. Usually, since we've been up most of the night working, it takes an hour or more to climb out of sleep and out of bed. The news stories enter our consciousness first as fragments of our dreams. Recently I dreamed I and our President were in a rather Victorian parlor face to face with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; I was trying to coax Bush to answer the letter Ahmadinejad had written; Bush was dressed in a blue jumpsuit with a long-billed red cap. Needless to say, it was difficult to get him to concentrate.

So, when Toni had finished a group of concept sketches for a group of beautiful travel bags with cargo pockets and said "Let's call this the Gaza collection," I was not surprised. But I thought because of the news she might have gotten confused. "Don't you mean Giza?" I asked. "Like the pyramids?" No, she meant Gaza: "like the Gaza Strip." I worried for a while, wondering what the fashion community would make of something like this; would anybody be upset? It seemed needlessly controversial. Toni insisted. She said she had been thinking a lot about what we'd been hearing on the news, and about the region as she designed the bags. She reminded me why we started the company - in part because we wanted the freedom to do what we thought was best. I capitulated, and the collection is called Gaza.

Then I waited. Waited for somebody to comment; or even notice. One way or the other. Days passed by; the bags were on the linesheets; weeks passed by. Then months. The bags arrived. People bought them. Nobody seemed to notice. Before, I had been worried somebody would notice - now I was a little irritated nobody had. But finally, someone did notice, and asked us about it. Her response was worth it. Read Hala's blog post about it here. Thanks Hala for being curious and daring to ask!

JKG RIP

Last Saturday, in Cambridge, Mass. the economist John Kenneth Galbraith died at the age of 97. Sadly, his death seems to have been met with little notice. Partly it was his age - by 97 obituaries have so long been on file one might forget it hasn't already been printed. The era that Galbraith towered over, of FDR, Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy, and Johnson. If you missed the obituary in the Times you'd have hardly seen a ripple from his passing. But there ought to have been. Though it would exasperate him to hear it, Galbraith's observations about human nature far outweigh in value the economics he practiced. Mainly it is because economics as a discipline has shrunk in scope and aspiration that economists disregard Galbraith's achievements.

In many ways he is like the economist Thorstein Veblen of the generation before him - in many ways he is not. Veblen's main contribution was the notion of "conspicuous consumption" a phrase that ought to be familiar to anybody who makes money in the fashion business. Galbraith's great observation, in criticizing those in his own field, political, and business leaders was his notion of the "conventional wisdom." More than anything else this idea explains without apologizing the actions that have lead to so many problems, whether economic, as in stock-market crashes or savings and loan failures, or political and diplomatic, as in the missteps and miscalcuations and misunderstandings that lead to pointless wars being started and being continued long after their error has been made manifest.

"Coventional wisdom" no longer needs quotation marks, the phrase long having been accepted as a common English phrase since its appearence in Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1958). The idea is simple -- that people are married to their notions; we do and must continue to believe in what we believed to begin with, even if it does not bear up to reality. The conventional wisdom is held by convention, strengthened by group dynamics and entrenched by the structural nature of common endeavor, whether in academia, politics, or business. A huge part of our success at Hayden-Harnett has been to ignore the conventional wisdom: that a small designer needs to join a showroom to succeed, that bags need to be expensive to be beautiful, that consumption has to be conspicuous, that the customer prefers form over function-- well here at Hayden-Harnett we salute the true iconoclasts - not the glamorous pairing of the rich and famous on the Sundance channel; but you and us. RIP John Kenneth Galbraith, and thanks.