Handmade jewelry brand Beepy Bella is by designer and artist Isabella Lalonde, who works out of New York City. Having previously entered an experimental jewelry course at Central Saint Martins, the education inspired her to create Beepy Bella.
When asked in an interview with HypeBae to describe her brand, Lalonde said that "Beepy Bella is a handmade jewelry line created by me, Isabella Lalonde, who is an artist based in New York City. The brand itself represents more of an artist’s collective, a utopia of ideas and an unleashing of creativity. It’s really important as an artist, which is my background, that I create a brand that has unique products that are all crafted by hand or are made in collaboration with other artists who are working independently on their own various mediums. With my brand, I wanted to create this whole world that involves childhood fantasies of magic, fairies, mushrooms and forests and allow adults to enter back into that world and create this bridge between adulthood and childhood. I’m really interested in the transition of becoming a child and then an adult and the things within society that we typically lose the older we get, which is innately our sense of creativity and imagination."
"Fashion has always been a form of self-expression for me rather than a way to buy into trends," said Lalonde regarding a question about how her personal design philosophy has influenced her as a designer. "Fashion has always been an outlet and a cathartic process of dressing myself in the morning and representing who I am as an artist. The surrealist world and fantasy that lives inside of my head, plus the euphoric and fantastical utopia that I feel like I personally live in, along with my own reality is something I always try to channel within my everyday outfits. When I was growing up, I was sort of shy. I wasn’t the most outgoing or the class clown, but I always stood out because of the things I wore and I feel like that helped me identify who I was more than my words did as a kid. I always felt like people would understand who I was, how fantastical my imagination was and how creative my own art practice was because of the way I dressed. That was the way I was able to communicate with others."
When asked about her process for designing pieces like necklaces or earrings, Lalonde said, "For me, it’s a creative process entirely and I get really inspired by vintage beads, specifically glass or porcelain beads because they have this narrative quality to them. One of my favorite beads that I’ve sourced recently, are these vintage glass bird beads that are made by hand. I love being able to have these kitschy moments that also reference this fairy tale-esque world I’ve created. I get a lot of inspiration from the beads that I source or make, especially knowing that I am obsessed with fairy tales, mushrooms and magic which helps me narrow in on the specific types of beads that I like. From there, I’ll spend hours and hours researching different materials and artists who make their own beads. In terms of the placement of the beads, that whole process involves a form of synesthesia, where I see or taste colors or I hear textures. It’s almost like this mashing of senses and when I make necklaces, that plays a huge part because in a way, I can taste the beads that I place and I can feel the texture of color. It’s a very psychedelic, out-of-body experience where I am playing with form, shape, color and texture and can taste, smell and feel all of these things which inform one another. I kind of mix everything into a “soup” and have this unleashing of creative freedom where I’m able to build out a sculpture that feels as though I’m not looking at it with my eyes. My process has this interesting surrealist experience to it, which I find to be really cathartic, because it also reflects into my personal experience, my upbringing and my viewpoints on life. I think my jewelry pieces are autobiographical in a way and that’s why they can all be so unique, because they’re like poems, diary entries or paintings and they reflect my life in a way."
Information originally sourced from HypeBae.
