Thanks to Sotheby's and Saks 5th Ave from me!

Oh, I totally forgot to tell you...
Weeks ago I was contacted by the wonderful Amy K. of Sotheby's here in NYC. We had met at a craft show I participated in here in NY, and she contacted me because she was curating a benefit. The wonderful benefit was for an organization called City At Peace. Have a look at this amazing city youth development through the arts happening in our beautiful New York.
I donated a lovely necklace, with a vintage verdigris patinated leaf stamping and chandelier crystal dangling below. I will have a pic soon, I hope it raised some nice money for this amazing organization.

On another note, I will be at Renegade BK with the Better Than Jam Co-Op, and Renegade Los Angeles with my girl Miniature Rhino and new friend Monkeys Always Look.
Dooooope! I have never been to LA, but I am soooo excited. I have fam all over that city, finally I can hang Cali style with them :0)

Just wanted to share something I see more and more as I drive on the FDR. It's so strange, how you can pass something by all your life, but never really see it. Seeing and looking are such different things, my artists out there will agree. On Roosevelt Island there is an abandoned structure decaying. In a city of constant stimulation, over development and motion, this structure is just there, untouched, unshaken. I researched and found that it's an abandoned smallpox hospital built in 1854 when Roosevelt Island was still Blackwell's Island. It has a name- "Renwick Hospital".
I want to go peek around. I want to know what keeps it decaying and alive there, untouched. I found that it is built in gothic revival style and blah blah blah, but I want to know more than that. What ghosts are trapped in the sliced stone walls...hmmm...
photos courtesy of NY Times

Belated Nowrooz Mobarak!

It's 1389, I want to wish everyone a happy, beautiful New Year full of freshness. This year I got a really great photo of the family babies in the grass in my Baba's backyard. The small joys of life are not so small, they are just as recognizable and grand as they are.

On another note we're moving! Two blocks away...LOL. I won't be listing or creating for at least two weeks, try moving with two kids and hardly any help! It's hard.
So the first show of my season will be one of my favorite places EVER, The Brooklyn Lyceum. Be there the very first weekend of May, it'll be tons of fun.
http://www.bkcraftcentral.com/
Check out the classes that are available those days, Deb Klein has made them insanely affordable, I'm talking $5 to $10...

la petit chose.

some little treasures make there way to the shop just in time for Valentine's Day...My little collection of vintage charms salvaged from a New England warehouse on simple gold filled chains were a HIT during the holidays. People adored these simple, yet unique pieces and layered up with them or wore them single. The tiny skeleton key is really something, what's great is that on the gold filled chain the gunmetal patinated charm pops, as does the tiny copper padlock. Practical price of $20 for the key alone, $23 for the combo. Also wholesale available for my beautiful boutique buyers.
xoxoxoxoxooxxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxo

inspire.

A vintage tarot card sits above my work desk these past four weeks and wants to dance with me. The Chariot...I am a lover of all things Egyptian, and this card is all things Egyptian+Circus+Symbols, and I love it. My aunt on my mother's side (one of my grandmother's eleven children) is a clairvoyant tarot reader, and I will say this, she was the one person that believed EVERYTHING that nobody else believed when I was a child. All the mysteries of my youth she accepted with a smile. My grandmother on my father's side was also able to do things, she read fortunes of everyone in the room from there small cups of Turkish coffee. In most Middle-Eastern cultures, when you're done with the post-dinner coffee, you flip it over and it reveals a depiction or text then read by the special lady in the house. Ancient, ancient practices that humanity has meshed into the contemporary state of their cultures..quite amazing how inspiration molds who we are.

A little reminder: Sunday Love in Williamsburg, that happens to carry THoF jewelry, was once a Fortune Teller's home and work place on the gritty Grand Avenue...stop on in NYCers and go through a warp, a mirror pool so to speak:
Sunday Love
624 Grand Street
BROOKLYN

Better Than Jam Handmade Co-op Comes to Brooklyn!

Boutique Fashion Hits Bushwick
Better Than Jam Handmade Co-Op brings local indie design to a deserving neighborhood. February 1, 2010


Bushwick, Brooklyn - Better Than Jam Handmade Co-Op opens its doors on February 1, 2010. Located at 1095 Flushing Ave, the Co-Op is soon to be neighbors with 20 other diverse businesses that will inhabit the "Markets at the Loom," providing a varied destination for local shoppers to shop and browse.

“We hope to provide a unique shopping experience to the residents of Bushwick and the handmade community at large,” said designer Karin Persan, who owns the Better Than Jam Co-Op.

The Co-Op will bring to the forefront a variety of clothing, jewelry, and accessories, created by some of NYC's most talented designers. All items at the Co-Op will be 100% handmade. Better Than Jam will also host shopping and launch events, parties and workshops open to it’s designers and the local public, to grow the already hugely artistic and creative community.

" Our goal is to showcase local designers whose work is handmade and high quality, at a fair price," Persan continued.

WHERE: 1095 Flushing Ave , Brooklyn NY 11237

WHEN: Opening: February 1 Grand opening reception: Friday February 5th 7-10pm

CONTACT: Karin Persan karin@betterthanjannyc.com (631) 377-2500

Come mingle with the designers and receive complimentary drinks , 10% selected designers, and free tote bag with purchase, compliments of The {NewNew} Etsy street team.



Owner Karin Persan of Better Than Jam (www.betterthanjamnyc.com)

Sample of designers (full list at website above)

Handbags- SML Bags (www.smlbags.com)

Jewelry- The Hand of Fatima (www.fatimacouture.com)

Fashion- Joann Berman (www.joannberman.com)

Something Blue

I feel blue...particularly because of our human family suffering in Haiti. I really am without expression. When I was about 20, and had been out on my own for some years already, a beautiful Hatian family took me into their family. Even if I never met a Hatian, I would mourn this situation, but it's particularly hurtful because I understand the intense love and giving that comes from the Hatian community, please find it in your heart to donate in any way you see fit to the Hatian cause. Many artists are selling art that proceeds will go to Haiti. In a few days I will have a link for you to buy handmade all natural shea butter lip balm created for this cause.

As for another something blue...I listed this in the shop tonight...


I also took some photos of new apothecary I have worked on and some new curios of mine...

London Town I- BUST Mag Craftacular

I was so, so lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the London BUST Mag Craftacular. I have to say, BUST Magazine is an amazing monument to women, it has given indie designers and crafters and musicians such exposure and mad LOVE.
When I heard about this opportunity, I just had to try to be a part of it. London plays a role in my family history, when my family's country went into revolution, they became somewhat "stuck" in London. They were visiting my aunt at university in England, and word came over the radio that homes of government workers had been seized and all kinds of stuff, so they never returned. For about two years they dwelled in an apartment with friends on Edgeware Rd. I went to this place and stood looking at the building. How strange and far it must have been to have to call this European city "home". Edgeware Rd. is beautiful, I have dubbed it the "Middle Eastern Upper East Side". Anyhow, my wonderful partner and husband stayed behind on this trip, and I was accompanied by two people that might as well be blood family, my Renee and Alejandro. Renee also left her husband (my brother from another mother) Ayman with the baby (who is 3! lol). It was a blast, but something about European cities makes you want your man (or woman), they are designed with romance.
(Me, Shadia, Renee and Alejandro smoking sheesh on Edgeware Rd.)

My family there, Shadia and Baba Mansour took care of us one day in a beautiful house in Wimbledon. Wimbledon itself is green, hilly and quiet, it has an overwhelming English charm, and this gorgeous creeky old house the Mansour's live in is overflowing with character, Baba Mansour collects antiques and grows everything in the garden which is abundant with green vines, apples and even figs! Figs in London!! I felt like I was in an British mystery show in that house, I loved it. We ate in the garden and he told us all jokes and stories about is childhood.

Well, I love London, I love, love, love it. I went all over from Camden to Brixton, I stayed in Limehouse and invented different characters and we did comedy skits on a double-decker, it inspired us to dare, as people are less stressed it seems, more willing to just chill.

I have some pics to share from the most curious museum, the Wellcome Museum. Renee and I were waiting for the red line @ Tower Bridge station, where I spotted the add for the museum exhibit with a Victorian wax anatomical figure cut open. "We're going!" I told her...Renee, a nurse, was just as equally curios. This place has everything from chastity belts to Darwin's walking stick. It is a GEM!!!

(these were designed to look Madonna-like to be more accepted by people, can you see it??)

(c.1890 tattooed human skin)

I will have more pics of ridiculously cool stuff in blog II of London! xoxox

It's been a long, long time.

Wow, I have disappeared, huh? I am known for this. I must admit that while I dream of consistency, i don't know if I am meant for it...or is it that my way is just the right consistency for me? I don't know.
Since the last time I've wrote I traveled to San Francisco for the Renegade show and to London for the BUST Magazine Craftacular...utterly amazing places, amazing shows, artists and feeling. I have to say that London was the highlight of the summer for me though. I have so many stories and pictures for you, but when I returned from London two weeks ago we completely re-arranged our apartment and we've been fung shui-ing ever since. So until the next post where I will have all the pics and fun stuff for you....I have a favor to ask. Might you vote for me?

We will be @ a great show in D.C. called Crafty Bastards, I started this blog right after last year's one, and it's an amazing show. Basically this year I have a shot at winning free advertising AND a gift from Urban Outfitters. Whoever votes for me, please email me @ mariam@fatimacouture.com, and you will be entered to win a $50 gift card from Urban Outfitters if I win!!

Here is the link to vote for me, much love!!!

All Things Considered

All things considered...no, not Melissa Block and Michelle Norris, my life!
Wow, so alot is going on...so many political things in my other job, and in my first job as mother...some exciting new developments, Rami, at 10 and a half months walked!!! They want to make me work...hard.

So, spring is here, I have many a new additions to the line, and I have a secret stash that will be going up on my website by May 2009.

I've been focusing on a face lift of sorts, I am in the works for a new logo, a really exciting old piece of leather miniature from a special country came into my possession, and inspired me.

Also, the "mens" line, well what I meant to say was a line, marketed more towards men, but truly a, his, hers and them line. I am a feminist, so if I make something, it for a man, best believe it will also suit a woman...no pun intended. (suit...)

A new addition of head pieces will make there way to the website, fatimacouture.com.
Also, I have finally used those bones I've had. The line "Voodoo" is a take on the ever lasting drive for man/womankind to use other species for inspiration and mystical representation, along with the seedy diaspora of voodoo...sprinkle some mourning jewelery from the Victorian era, and voila!

I am sorry to all my vegans out there, but believe that these animals came from a professional taxidermist and were not killed for the bones, they were already dead, found or donated by an animal hospital.

I must say my vending over the holidays brought me in contact with some great new customers who offered great feedback. Many requested bones, and so many dudes were intrigued, which was a grand compliment.

Back to work!

Freedom of Womanhood

Wow, this film looks absolutely fantastical...I must see it.