Finally one will be able to order prints of any of them in a variety of cutting edge mediums to add a window of beauty to any wall.  Stay tuned…

Meanwhile enjoy this sneak peek!

Rincon by David Pu'u

PCH by David Pu'u

Pacific Common Dolphins, Santa Barbara, by David Pu'u

Angel by David Pu'u

Hannah Mermaid by David Pu'u

California Poppies by David Pu'u

Underwater by David Pu'u

Surfer in the barrel by David Pu'u

Exploding Wave by David Pu'u

Andalusians by David Pu'u

Andreini Hot Curl by David Pu'u

Surfer Larry Ugale in the barrel, by David Pu'u

San Francisco Surfer Samuel Witmer by David Pu'u

Hula Dancer Rainbow by David Pu'u

Inside the barrel, by David Pu'u

San Francisco Bay at Night by David Pu'u

Pelican and crashing wave by David Pu'u

Sunset Surfers by David Pu'u

Sunrise Inside Barrelling Wave by David Pu'u

Watching the Sunset in Seychelles by David Pu'u

What an honor it was to meet Dr. Dave and Randall! Surfaid has been one of my favorite orgs to give to over the years for the amazing work they do preventing Malaria and especially after the Tsunami in Indo. David and I, along with Robb Havassy, attended the SA Fundraiser in Malibu last night. I got to meet Donovan Frankenreiter and his beautiful family and hear him perform for the first time in more than 5 years. They sounded just brilliant! What an amazing day to be followed by another amazing day: today. Read about this here on David’s Blog.

Donovan Frankenreiter and his band performing at Surfaid International's Behind the Palms Fundraiser in Malibu

Robb is in town to do a phenomenal show together with David tonight at a truly amazing location, The Stoneworks Gallery. David wrote about it here. There will be a Luau in the garden tonight, complete with roasted pig, mai tais, tikis and hula. And I will have a Betty Belts table set up to offer my ocean-inspired adornments (including sea glass jewelry and my upcycled Surfboard Resin jewelry and plumeria flower hair clips to add tropical style. You should come! Details below.

But first, I will be at the Stewart+Brown Sample Sale, selling my samples and seconds at my table there. We are truly blessed to have these places and people in Ventura, an international organic fashion designer who makes absolute gorgeousness. I wore a Stewart+Brown dress to the event last night and got stopped twice about it. : ) Want to come? 955 East Front Street, Ventura, 93001 from 12-5.

And tonight, the Luau! At 300 Ventura Avenue, corner Park Row (entrance gate on Park Row). 5-9 Includes Feast and Entertainment in the garden $45 at the door (bring cash). After 9pm free entrance to see the art and gather around the fire. Questions? 805-643-5431

Don’t miss this blog David wrote this morning on this very subject!

Onward!

I have been designing sea glass jewelry for three years now, but failed to mention it much here on the blog. I’ve been told by many that I need to share this part of my art more widely, so please enjoy the pictures below and let me know if you have any questions about them.

We are in the process of re-doing the website and soon you will find more frequent updates and many new styles.

Check out the  Betty Belts Facebook Page for more frequent updates, inspiration, ocean love and opportunities to win your own ocean-inspired accessories!

Cobalt Sea Glass Double Bezel Set in Sterling

Sea Glass Mini Pendants

Sea glass cuff links and ring

Enjoy! – Donna

Donna von Hoesslin: Surfer – Designer – Activist

Author- Charlene Ross for Skirt Magazine

Donna Surfing at Queens, Waikiki. Pure bliss. Photo copyright David Pu'u.

Donna von Hoesslin is a California girl who followed a drummer to Europe at the age of 17 and ended up living in Berlin for 17 years. She married into German nobility and was living the fabulous life of the social elite. During her time abroad she held various jobs as a fashion designer, translator and back-up singer for a European two-hit wonder band.

But the very first time Donna stepped on a surfboard at the age of 31 her life changed forever. She was hooked instantly and became passionate about surfing and would travel often to faraway places so she could ride the waves. Unfortunately it was a passion her husband did not share. One day after returning home from a surf trip Donna and her husband Elmar realized that their marriage had turned into a convenient friendship and the word divorce hung in the air between them. They both cried. Today they are separated by 5,000 miles, but truly remain the closest of friends.

Betty Belts

Donna came back the states and moved into a shared beach house in her hometown of Santa Cruz so she could make surfing a part of everyday life. To make a living she became a…

(Click here to read rest of story. Or on the link below.)

http://ventura.skirt.com/shes_so_skirt/donna-von-hoesslin-surfer-designer-activist

The surfboard resin jewelry is a fantastic achievement. We finally found a beautiful solution for the waste byproduct resin created by surfboard building. It took a year of R&D, but the results were well worth the wait and I have to say, everyone who comes into the shop and sees these pendants and earrings is completely enchanted by them and even more so when they find out the story behind them; Each stripe in the jewelry is excess resin from a locally made surfboard, connected to a surfer riding that board, connecting to the ocean.

I debuted the collection at the Sacred Craft in Santa Cruz. Check out our little cameo in this video about this important surfboard culture event, which Betty Belts has been a part of for the past four years.

The jewelry is not yet available on our website, but can be ordered through the Betty B. retail store in Ventura at 805.648.6997

You can also see more photos and shapes on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bettybelts

I can see this being the final nail in the coffin of many small businesses like my own. The artisans around the world who depend on us for work will be facing less contracts and lost income. I am going to do my very best to keep my own busy, because that has always been my promise to them, but this is going to be a very big challenge for my business.

Meanwhile we have added local USA production (very expensive already) of some designs in the collection, but I still pledge to support the Balinese people I have been working with for all these years.

Grrrr… The good news is, GSP has expired before and been revived. It can happen again. Fingers crossed.

This is what it’s about:

On December 31, 2010, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program expired. GSP extends duty-free treatment to several thousand products imported into the United States from more than two-thirds of the world’s countries. GSP is an important way American companies keep costs down. Large and small businesses import products duty-free under GSP. 

The quote below is from a Transworld Business article about how some big box retailers marketing themselves as “authentic” are nothing of the sort. I personally know other independent designers whose designs have been copied by many so-called authentic brands. The sad thing is, people don’t even realize that these brands don’t truly have their own identity, but steal ideas from other creative people who are too small to defend themselves.

So why on earth couldn’t Hollister just make their own Surfboard? Hollister is NOT a real surf brand, it’s a fake one! (sigh)
Be authentic, buy authentic!

“It’s no secret that over the course of the past few years Hollister Co., the mall-based store owned by Abercrombie and Fitch Co. has been marketing its apparel as a surf brand. While several endemic companies have argued that Hollister has borrowed designs and concepts from their lines, no one in the surf market has tried to substantiate the claims, until now.
On March 6, 36-year-old artist Robb Havassy, whose art has been licensed out to brands such as Reef, Op, and Robert August in the past, filed a lawsuit against Hollister Co. It alleges that the brand created more than 300 exact replicas of a surfboard that he custom-painted and displayed the reproductions in the front windows of its stores nationwide without his knowledge or approval. The suit claims Hollister is liable for the unauthorized use of his artwork and personal identity in its national in-store marketing and branding campaign. Havassy is seeking remuneration for the use of his artwork and name by Hollister over the past several years and for any future use, as well as public acknowledgment that they used his graphic designs without his knowledge and permission.

“I’m not exactly sure where they got it, but somebody got a hold of it and they dug it and thought that it should be at the front of the store and be a part of their whole look”, says Havassy, who admits to being impressed with how precisely the brand managed to duplicate his work. “They’re identical. Exactly. Down to my signature and my date on the signature. They replicated it identically, to the duct tape on the nose and little repair marks on the deck. People say I should be pissed, but… ”

- Excerpt from a Transworld Business Article that was published in 2007, but has since  unfortunately been removed from the archives (I wish I still had the entire article for you). You can read a related, updated Transworld Business Article (from the perspective of the surf industry) here:

http://business.transworld.net/features/how-hollister-co-stole-surf-eight-years-after-abercrombie-fitch-invaded-the-surf-market-what-can-be-done-to-defend-against-them/

And I highly recommend you read Robb Havassy’s story about how he takes back surf culture for the rest of us here:  http://www.ocregister.com/articles/havassy-252308-surf-art.html

A copy of Robb Havassy's Surfboard in Hollister Display. They even copied his RH signature at the bottom

Today’s Daily Dose of Seth once again just nails it. This is one of many reasons I don’t send my designs free to celebrities and don’t want to sell my brand to Macy’s or Urban Outfitters. I keep BB small and manageable so I don’t lose control and can keep surfing, but most of all, so it can remain win-win for my artisans, my staff, my self and my customers. In manageable scale.

Once, in 2007, my brand was on display at the National Retail Federation’s annual “Big Show” at Javitz Center in NYC, in the “Store of the Future” installation of a Pop-up Store.

I felt like such a prostitute when I saw who was coming. The C-Class of all the big box retailers marched through and I had to stand there and explain to them why they needed to make environmental and social responsibility a priority. A major shoes and accessories chain asked me to create a cheap line of jewelry for them which I felt would have necessitated exploitation of the people making them to get the price as  low as they needed it so I simply said NO.

Thank you, Seth, once again, for confirming what I already knew in my heart.

Ready for the doors to open.

Some of the 17 hand-painted styles we created for Hobie Girl. You cant even buy this collectors item! The only way to get one is to buy a Hobie Bikini at a partipating Dillards or other Hobie retailer.

I’ve spent the past two months working on a really cool project with Hobie, one of the oldest iconic surf brands, today a multifaceted conglomerate of fun things us ocean lovers do in the water, sailing, kayaking, surfing and much more. Together we created a Betty Belts private label product, a hand painted bangle to be used as a gift-with-purchase promotion for retailers who sell Hobie Girl Bikinis. Buy a bikini, get a free bangle.

On various levels I’ve worked with Hobie for years. We share two brand ambassadors, a.k.a. “team riders”, the lovely surfing twins Sierra and Hailey Partridge. Sierra and Hailey have been with Team Betty since 2005, when Betty Belts became their first surfing sponsor. Photographer David Pu’u, who around then became my own partner in life, started shooting them surfing and modeling BB and soon got them cast as models for a Hobie photo shoot in Hawai’i. One thing led to another, with the girls proving their water skills to be numerous, and they became the first female athletes since Joyce Hoffman (1962) to get signed on by the brand.

Hailey and Sierra Partridge modeling one of the 2011 Hobie Bikinis. Hailey is also wearing my new "surfboard resin" earrings, made from excess surfboard resin collected by local shapers. Upcycle with style!

Every year since, Hobie has hired David to shoot most of their product lines, including the bikini line for their ad and retailer display campaigns. And Betty B. accessories make a frequent appearance on Hailey and Sierra.  I myself am the one who styles and accessorizes the bikini shoots every year. We all work really well together and the results are always gorgeous.

When they started thinking about their annual gift-with-purchase for 2011, Carrie Seifert, PR Director for the brand, contacted me about Betty Belts possibly creating the giveaway for them for 2011. Together we came up with the hand-painted bangle idea, using the patterns from the 2011 Hobie bikini collection to make them extra special and collectible.

Nyoman's beautiful hands add a layer of design to one of the Hobie Bohemian Bangles. Each one is painted by hand by the Balinese Artisans of Betty B. for the Hobie Project.

My  artisans in Bali have been very excited about the project and diligently hand painted 9000 bangles in 17 different patterns to become a gift with a Hobie Bikini purchase at Dillard’s Stores and other select Hobie retailers this Spring. For a retailer near you, check with Hobie Girl.

Please see the photos below and their captions to get to know the people behind this project and enjoy the  interesting back stories. I am very proud of my artisans for pulling his off in a relatively short amount of time and especially to my Bali production manager Ketut, for coordinating everything over there so seamlessly and capturing the process in these photos.

My staff in Bali and I are looking forward to doing more private label jobs like this for other companies who want to have something more authentic and unique to represent their brand.

For more info please visit www.BettyBelts.com

Betty Belts artisan Komang Oka, age 25, carefully paints the Hobie floral pattern onto one of the Hobie Bohemian Bangles.

Here you can easily see the first two steps painting this Hobie Design on the bangles. They need to dry between each coat. They can have as many as 12 layers of colors in the patterns we made.

Wayan Karmini, age 22, is meticulously painting pink dots on the bangles. She is wearing her old stained clothes for painting, but still matched it up. Notice the way she holds her pinky finger, which is an aspect of traditional Balinese dance.

A close up view of Wayan's talented hands at work.

These Hobie Bohemian Bangles have a few more layers to go before they are finished, but they already look really cool!

Betty Belts Artisan Made Nguwer, age 17, paints pink dots on one of the flower Bohemian Bangles. She practices Traditional Balinese Dance, as you can see by the way she holds her fingers here.

Kadek Kenti, age 21, takes a break from painting to spend a moment with her daughter. Children are cherished in Bali. Interesting Fact: Balinese Babies feet are not allowed to touch the ground for the first six months of their lives to protect them from evil spirits.

Ketut and Ayu who work at Betty Belts HQ in Bali carefully pack the bangles for shipping to California. Interesting fact: Everything we make and process in Bali gets blessed every day in their Hindu rituals. It is an important part of the culture that is an important part of the making of BB products. You can always feel the love when you own a piece made by Betty Belts.

Ketut Lestari, age 23, sits behind a wall of bangles in the Betty Belts HQ in Bali, doing quality control of each and every one before they get stacked and packed for shipping. We had the same situation here in California when they arrived.

The Hobie logo is painted onto the inside of every bangle.

That's me, Donna, surrounded by boxes of Hobie bangles at our house. The shipment was too large to process at the tiny Betty B. shop in Ventura, so we did it over several days in the living room of our home. Our cats enjoyed their temporary perches on makeshift box towers in their terrain.

Sierra Partridge of Team Betty and Team Hobie was over at the house to shoot some surfing with David and helped quality control the shipment from Bali one evening. Thank you, Sierra!