I’m hugely excited to finally make this little announcement today. The shop now offers a very limited, special edition piece by Erin Considine created only for Pour Porter. Erin and I had been discussing doing something like this for several months and I was bowled over when she sent pictures of the completed necklace. I think my emailed response contained an offensively large number of exclamation points and caps! The necklace’s simplicity coupled with the variety of textures and subtle colours perfectly captures what I feel is the shop’s aesthetic -simple but interesting. (All pictures below by Erin Considine)

Now, no special edition piece would be complete without a backstory, and this necklace has a really wonderful personal angle to it. Erin was able to vacation near the Catskills in the early summer and went mushroom hunting in between rain storms. She uncovered a cluster of what she believes were a species of the genus Boletus, and transported them back to her studio.

Erin is fascinated by the boundless diversity of natural dying, and is always looking for ways to integrate what she discovers into her work. A batch of mushroom “liquor” was in order and after pulverizing and boiling them, she added iron sulphate and silk fiber, letting it steep overnight. The following day, the silk emerged a beautiful silvery grey, green. Dyes made from mushrooms are each wholly unique because the colour they produce is completely dependent on weather, soils, region, and age upon harvest. So now Erin had a lot of subtly tinted silk but its use wasn’t determined until Erin paid a visit to her grandfather’s garage-cum-workshop in Illinois.

In what most people would have seen as a garage stuffed with useless junk, Erin found an abundance of things she could incorporate into her creative process. While her grandfather has Alzheimer’s, he was able to share a story for each tool in the garage and what he had made with them over the years. With this newfound historical knowledge of the things she helped her grandfather sort through, Erin collected a hammer, copper washers, rivets, and other creatively promising objects to take back home.

This special edition piece is Erin’s response to the materials she’d gathered over the summer, and a wonderful reworking of old items from family storage. The necklace is constructed of vintage brass snake chain, her grandfather’s copper and steel washers, and that beautiful silvery mushroom dyed silk. I don’t know about you guys, but I love knowing the story behind an object, and this necklace certainly has one. Only three available. Thanks Erin!

All Spring ANNTIAN, A’N'D, Correll Correll, Erin Considine, ffiXXed, Lina Rennell, Osei-Duro, Rachel Comey, and Upstate now 30% off

Spring Sale now on at the shop. 20-25% off select items from Rachel Comey, Lina Rennell, A’N'D, Erin Considine, and ffiXXed. Also, a couple new arrivals from A’N'D and ffiXXed

After many grueling months (mostly for Brannan) the new site is now live, as is our S/S 2011 lookbook. I think Brann’s really outdone himself with the redesign – it’s beautiful. : ) We reorganized the navigation, added a blog features link, have bigger and better product images, and upgraded to a much better shopping cart. I think it’s just more pleasant to browse now, too.

We’re still engaged in some mop up, so if you encounter any bugs, do let us know. Past sale items will be back up in the next few weeks, we just need to reshoot several as our lighting and camera equipment was less than adequate when we initially took them.

We’ll also be moving most shop announcement information to our Facebook page. If you’re not on Facebook, don’t worry, we’ll still make some announcements here. We’ll also still be somewhat active on the mailing list, but we want to cut down on the amount of mail our subscribers have to sift through. Mostly we’ll be using the mailing list for special announcements only.

We also have a 20% off sale on Erin Considine items for one week. And we’ll be adding some new items over the summer. (Welcome Slow and Steady Wins the Race! Love you Pyramid bag)

In the web log news, I’ll be trying to mix it up more, adding some more personal stuff, and attempting to diversify the subject matter. I feel like writing strictly about fashion has become redundant these days, and I want to maintain my enthusiasm for what I’m doing here.

It has yet to really warm up here, but I hope most of you are starting to feel like it’s finally summer!