| We heart Amy! Many of you already know her and her genius sisters as the supertalents behind the family-run handbag company 31 Corn Lane but you may not have known that Amy has become part of our lil’ fred family as well. Hoorah! As the head of our product development department, Amy designs many of the awesome cute items you find on this site. She makes our world ever more populated with unicorns, hearts, rainbows and all sorts of cute forest friends and trust us when we say it’s a great place to live.
Tell us about your job.
I help bring the fred flare vision to life so pretty much everything that is found in our fred flare boutique is product I have designed. I work on t-shirts, jewelry, bags and tons of other fun surprises. So many more amazing things are on their way! How did you get into making things?
I got my degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City specializing in Fashion Design with a concentration in Knitwear. My first job was actually doing product development for the supercute catalog Delia’s. I believe they still sell a starry night printed sheet set that I developed almost ten years ago. What are some of the steps involved in developing a product?
First, I start out with sketches or actual samples of an old item. I love to scavenge thrift stores for odds and ends and oh boy do I love eBay!! For example, our rainbow heart stretch belt was inspired by some vintage elastic I found. After we figure out what we want to make, I spend some time exploring who will manufacture it, though sometimes we actually make the things right here at the warehouse. I have two super interns, Megan and Jen, who are masters of heatsetting, pom-pom making and assembling jewelry. We love our crafternoons! After the product is finished then it goes right up on the site. Some things take a few days while others take months to develop and produce. What is your favorite product you’ve created so far?
I feel lucky to have a job where I love the work so much it’s too hard to pick, though I have a special place in my heart for the polka dot kitty wallet as I am nuts about patchwork right now! What inspires you?
TV… I love to watch Fuse all day and all night. I can’t get enough of all the new generation Mall Emo and Baby Band Pop Rock that this channel plays all day long. I am also super into the 70’s as a whole right now. I heart mushrooms, owls, rainbows and patchwork. You can totally tell in my own handbag line that Holly rocked my Hobby! Oh yeah, you’re totally pulling double design duty. Tell us about 31 Corn Lane!
31CL is the handbag line me and my sisters have had for the last 9 years. We started making the bags in our kitchen, handsewing them one at a time. This new season is our first full-blown “collection” of bags, wallets, tees and belts. fred flare was so nice to order super early and got to offer advance exclusives of two pieces from the line, the carrie tote and the handy dandy roller tote! Corn Lane also has this super fun collabo with Fall Out Boy’s Clandestine Industries coming out in the fall that is gonna knock your socks off! How did you start your business?
We just kept putting all the money back into the pot, as they say. It started with 300 beans because each sister tossed in a $100 and then we keep using the last bag’s sales to buy the new bags. We started as a joke but people really liked the totes so we’ve just kept growing. fred flare to this day is one of our best retailers! We hear you have a lot of little dogs and pony paint-by-numbers at home. True?
We sure do love us some small dogs! We have four: Tim, Miles, Wiggle Puppy and Baby Seth. We have quite a few pony paint-by-number paintings as well. Our hallway at home has about one hundred, to be exact. Let it be known that the Sperbers love ponies and puppies and parties! You totally make our dreams of puppies and ponies and hearts and rainbows come true! What do you dream of, Amy?
I am all about living on a lake house one day, sitting on my dock with a clothes line full of freshly-washed vintage 1970’s Holly Hobbie dresses and a wireless connection so I can eBay all day! Any shout-outs?
I’d like to give a big Jersey “Ummm, Hey!” to my family and friends. I feel like it’s time for a super cheesy yearbook quote right about now so here goes… “You light up my life. You give me hope to carry on. You light up my days. And fill my nights with song!” Oh, one more shout-out: I’d LOVE to hear from you. Pls email me at amy@fredflare.com and let me know what cha think of our products. I’m also always looking for awesome interns for fred’s Product Development department so check our jobs page! Thanks!!!
07/20/06
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