The Betty Blog » Balinese culture

Bikinis & Bangles – The Making of the Hobie Bohemian Bangle

donna — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:04:55 +0000

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!

Our cats Ninja and Samurai enjoyed having a house full of boxes while we processed the huge shipment of Hobie Bohemian Bangles in our living room.

Betty Belts in the Media: Donna’s a Cover Girl!

donna — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:06:55 +0000

Wow, I’m blown away!

I’m a “Cover Girl” today!

Check out this inspiring article below from this week’s VC Reporter…

Betty Belts Owner/Designer Donna von Hoesslin graces the cover of the VC Reporter with one of her all time favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Commerce, Compassion and Community

by Claudia Pardo McFayden

The sweet scent of African freesia wafting through the store and onto the street entices visitors into the carefully decorated eclectic space that is Betty Belts. Cradled in a corner just off the beaten path in Downtown Ventura, the cozy yet vibrant ocean-inspired accessories shop, owned and run by Donna Von Hoesslin, is replete with beautiful and unique jewelry and accessories — ceramic necklaces, metal pendants, leather cuffs, colorful scarves, elaborate belts, cute beanies, intricate hairpins and more. It’s a delightful bazaar of one-of-a-kind, handmade treasures.

Established as an online store back in 2003, Betty Belts, also known as Betty B., is older than its current brick and mortar location. It began as a wholesale and online brand of belts in Santa Cruz, with a later addition of jewelry. “The brand existed before I opened the store,” says Von Hoesslin. Operating out of a warehouse on the basis of win-win — people, environment efficiency and women’s surfing, Betty B.’s promise has been to show up in the community while offering a unique and accessible product.

A surfer herself for more than 10 years, Von Hoesslin finds her inspiration in the beach and in her time spent out in the ocean. It was her passion for surfing that caused her trepidation about opening a retail store. “I didn’t originally want a physical location,” she admits. “I was afraid I would not have time to surf, have a life.” Her boyfriend and biggest supporter, David Pu’u, Santa Barbara native and celebrated photographer and filmmaker, encouraged her to get the space. Von Hoesslin took her board out to sea and found her answer in the place that inspired it all to begin with. She opened Betty Belts in 2007. “It was the best decision I ever made.”

Since then, Betty B. has become a hub of connectedness in the community. Offering an array of uniquely designed jewelry by local artists and artisans from Bali, it remains true to its original promise: to contribute to the community and build relationship through a unique product. Work by local artists including that of the skillful Hands of Stone, a group of women who make eco-friendly ceramic necklaces with ocean-influenced elements, Kathleen Fitzgerald’s one-of-a-kind, exquisitely crafted, hand-made earrings; Guy Q. Goods’ metal jewelry for men and women; Lise Solvang’s cozy alpaca and bamboo knits; Tiki Tony ceramic tiki necklaces; and David Pu’u’s attention-demanding prints that serve as the main wall décor in the shop.

Women are especially responsive to Von Hoesslin’s enriching collaboration with the artists, not only the female patrons but all the women who become interconnected through Betty Belts. There is a tangible female bond that begins with Von Hoesslin as the connector and is often sparked by chance meetings at Betty Belts. “I introduce women who come to the shop to each other, and cool things happen,” she says. One particular connection is mothers and daughters.

“They wear the same jewelry. I dig it,” she says. Often she will find the mothers coming back to the store to purchase a new piece because their daughters are wearing theirs. The common faux-pas of being caught wearing the same accessory is instead a thrilling commonality among her female customers.

A recent collaboration between Von Hoesslin and what is affectionately knows as Team Betty, a group of female surfers who have become essential in the promotion and marketing of Betty Belts, resulted in the personal design of a piece of jewelry by each of four local sufers: Mary Osborne, Jeannette Ortiz, Hailey Partridge and Sierra Partridge.

Together with Von Hoesslin and Pu’u, they traveled to Bali, where they worked and executed this creative project.

In addition to working with local artists, Von Hoesslin employs several artisans from Bali, where most of the pieces are made. Having worked for close to seven years with the same artisans, Donna has established a work ethic based on fairness, skill, good quality and, most important for her, community…

Continue reading here:

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/commerce_compassion_and_community/7661/

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A New Year of Appreciation

donna — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:11:40 +0000

The beautiful Balinese people who I have been working with for six years now on the production of Betty Belts and Betty B. can teach us a lot about generosity, love and appreciation. One thing I have never seen among the Balinese is a sense of entitlement. They practice gratitude every day with their daily ritual of offerings and frequent ceremonies. It’s mind-boggling for a westerner to see how much of their productivity is spent (not wasted!) on offerings, but eventually you understand that it is what makes them who they are and it would be a terrible thing if that should ever change. As a society, they have a balance that is enviable for the rest of us. It’s why we are so enchanted with Bali.

So I’d like to offer up a post about Appreciation in the New Year because I know it will enrich our lives to practice more of it. There is so much to appreciate. Always look for it.

Tell people you appreciate them.
Tell God you appreciate him and what he has given/created.
Look around you and appreciate what you have, because there is always someone out there who has less to appreciate than you do.
It might not be an easy habit to develop, but it will benefit so many that the benefits will be innumerable.

I appreciate you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for enjoying.
Thank you for keeping the Betty Brand pulsing in these unsteady times.

I’m wishing you a new year (a lifetime!) of love, sweetness, joy and most of all, appreciation!

Smiles from Ventura,

Donna von Hoesslin

Owner/Designer at Betty Belts/Betty B., Member Team Betty

P.S. For more frequent updates than I offer on this blog (plus great insider specials), please become a fan of Betty Belts on Facebook or follow us on Twitter

Bali!

donna — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:23:25 +0000

An amazing trip is being planned. A journey with a gaggle of the bright lights which make up a good part of the Betty Belts Surf team: Mary Osborne, Jeanette Ortiz and Twins Sierra and Hailey Partridge.
David Pu’u will be directing and shooting this ambitious project about designing and contributing, grace and cultural respect, spirituality and sustainability, and of course some surfing. He is often better able to express what exactly I do in Bali when I go there to work with the Artisans who hand make all Betty Belts products. So I’m very excited about this!

To follow this journey, follow me on twitter

http://www.twitter.com/bettybelts