Fridays with Foz: 2710 N Interstate

A week from Sunday, Revive and I will be moving into our new location in Kenton. It's going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye to the place (and the people) we've called home for three years. Next week we'll say goodbye. 

Today I thought I'd take you on my favorite walk at 2710 N Interstate.

Fridays with Foz: The Couch

Today we completed the final steps of our newest creation. This gorgeous couch started out as another run down vintage piece. (If only we had taken a before shot!)

Although the arms originally had a yellowish varnish, Leland refinished the walnut wood arms with a  

hand rubbed wax finish, exposing the original grain.

We decided to use a combination of Pendleton and Danish wools when upholstering the cushion and frame. The subtle differences between the two shades give the couch a dynamic and modern look.

The original legs were a stained oak that didn't really fit the couch, so Robert from Beam & Anchor was kind enough to make us a set of matching walnut legs.

The backrest cushions are a natural latex, while the bottom cushions are a high resilience foam.

This couch is quite a beauty and is currently for sale at our Rejuvenation Pop Up Shop. 

Hope you stop by for a sit.

Fridays with Foz: Brian Falgoust from Welcome Stranger

Back in November, Leland and the Revive crew participated in the Makers Route project with Makers Workshop & Welcome Stranger. I was fortunate enough to get Brian Falgoust, of Welcome Stranger to chat a little bit about the Makers Route project, his work and what his perfect night involves.

Tin Type taken by Giles Clement at the Makers Route party in Portland! 

Fozzie: Hi Brian, thanks so much for taking the time. First off, I was wondering a bit about your background, have you always been in the fashion industry?

Brian Falgoust: I actually studied Musical Theatre in high school and college, so I've spent the better part of my young adult/adult life performing and traveling with different companies.  I started in the apparel industry when I was 19, just as a day job, and quickly found a second passion in apparel/design.  After taking a break from performing and relocating to the Bay Area, I found myself again in the retail and apparel industry, and began building a relationship with the company I currently work for, The Azalea SF Company, which Welcome Stranger is a part of.  It has been really wonderful dipping my hands into all aspects of the company and the Welcome Stranger line, from store management to social media to close discussions with our buyers on different designers, brands, and collaborators. 

F: How'd did you come to work for Welcome Stranger?

B: I actually started off as a sales associate, and I had some management experience previous to joining the company. So when a management position became available, I took that position. As I started learning more about the company and Welcome Stranger, I began taking on more responsibility in social media and marketing, and became more involved in discussion about design and future brand development.

F: What was it about this company that drew you in?

B: From beauty products to interior design, I love well crafted items that have a story.  Welcome Stranger is such a quality brand with a specific customer that is super appealing to me personally. Every item in the collection and in the store is an item I would wear.  It's also great to work for a brand made locally in San Francisco, and to see the process of a locally made brand.

F: Leland was really excited to participate in the Makers Route Project, can you tell me what inspired the whole trip?

I knew Lindsey from when I was living in Louisiana. We had mutual friends in common in the design and apparel industry.  With the success of her MakersWorkshop, and my own admiration of her work, I saw it as an opportunity to not only work with someone I knew and loved personally, but also respected and knew would understand Welcome Stranger's path and vision.  So Lindsey, myself, and the Welcome Stranger team began brainstorming on what we could do to reach out further than the SF bay area, and gain a wider audience not only on social media, but able to get real product into the hands of real makers.  Lindsey, being the sweetest person around, created the idea of of the Road Trip to showcase our product on real people, and to showcase people we as a brand are influenced by. It really ended up coming together in a super special way, and I think we're all happy with the results.  She's created amazing photographs and content that we can use continuously, and we were able to get our items into the hands of people who support the American Made movement.

F: Everyone at Revive really loves the clothing line, and both Kelly and Chelsea wanted to know if you'll be expanding the line to women?

B: We have women, almost daily, who come into our shop and say "Wow, I wish you guys had a women's store!"  So this has definitely sparked our interest in the possibility of branching into women's wear.  Who knows if that will come to fruition, but it is nice to know there are women who like our work.

F: Do you think there is a correlation between fashion and interior design? 

B: I definitely see a correlation between fashion and interior design. I think certain aesthetics in fashion apply to interior design.   A man who wears more traditional, rugged menswear, often has a reflective interest in home and interior design.  You'll also find minimalist style correlating to a more minimalist interest in interior design.  For some people, juxtaposition is of interest, and I find especially with some of our Welcome Stranger customers, they'll lean toward rugged menswear, yet purchase something like Hasami mugs, which are super minimal and modern.  

F: Who do you think sets the trends, the fashion world or the interior design world?

B: I feel that's tough to say.  I feel interior design and fashion design are inspired by each other in many cases.  There are, of course, certain trends in the art world, colors/textiles/lines etc that will always "trend" and find themselves in fashion/design.

F: Do you have a favorite designer?

B: It's always so tough to answer this question.  As far as women's wear, I always lean towards modern lines with classic looks - Celine, Jil Sander, Helmut Lang.  For menswear, it's all over the place.  I have more experience in menswear, and of course wear it every day.  I love Norse Projects for men, I love classic American lines like Woolrich.  Mark McNairy is another American Made designer who's been making a big noise lately. His stuff is super fun and quirky and really colorful.  I own a couple of items of his work, and they are such quality products. We recently began carrying a London based brand, Uniform Wares, at our flagship Welcome Stranger store, and their menswear is really great - utilitarian in ways, with pops of prints and colors that make it stand out.  As far as luxury menswear, Thom Brown and Tom Ford are at the top.

F: What are some of your favorite activities outside of your work?

B: Outside of my jobs with the company, I still enjoy dancing and performing when I can - I sing in a band, and take dance and yoga classes.  I also enjoy hiking and camping and traveling whenever I can! But if we're being completely honest, a night in on tumblr with a bottle of red wine is truly one of my greatest joys.

F: As an avid hiker myself, what's one of your favorite places to take a walk?

B: I grew up in small town, Cajun Country Louisiana.  My back yard was about 300 yards deep of sugar cane, and behind that woods and swamps.  If I had a favorite, it would be walking through the fields/swamps behind my house.  Other than that, I love walking in SF.  It's city of EPIC views at every turn.  In the Richmond district of San Francisco, you can walk up to the top of the hill and see the Marin headlands and the Golden Gate bridge - it's a trek uphill for sure, but once you're at the top the view is insane! Definitely a favorite area to explore in San Francisco.

It was so great getting to connect with Brian and learn a little more about Welcome Stranger. Follow Welcome Stranger on Instagram (@welcomestranger) , Facebook, Twitter (@welcomestrangr), and Tumblr.

Fridays With Foz

Leland Duck & Chelsea Howard Duck

In our first installment of "Fridays with Foz" I will be interviewing the owners of Revive Upholstery & Design: Leland and Chelsea Duck. From what I have gathered, having lived with them for almost three years, the two met in Southern California in 2007. Having had their fill of the California life, they decided to move to Portland in May of 2009. 

Fozzie: What made you decide to move to Portland?

Chelsea: I had lived in California my whole life and always wanted to move up North. When we met, we realized that California wasn't where we wanted to base our lives, and decided to leave. I had a close friend who lived in Beaverton, so we visited her for a weekend and just decided to go for it. 

Leland: The economy had taken a nose dive and there were no opportunities for us in California. I had two rather crappy jobs, and it was pretty miserable. So we decided to move to a city with the highest unemployment rate...

F: So I take it you moved to Portland with no jobs?

L: Well, Chelsea had a job and worked from home for a company in California, unfortunately it only lasted a month. I did not have a job, and pretty much spent every day searching for employment. I started selling at flea markets, and swap meets, spent a lot of time on craigslist finding cool stuff to sell. Every day I would dedicate a few hours to walking into town, introducing myself to each business and asking if they were hiring or knew someone who was hiring. 

C:  It was actually on one of these walks that Leland kind of found his way into furniture upholstery.

F: How so?

L:  There was a building that was a few blocks from our house, and one day I walked by and there was this cabinet or table, I can't remember, on the curb. I was all ready to grab it, when the owners (Jim & Donna Moulton) came out and told me it wasn't a freebie. We got to talking and they mentioned they were looking for an upholsterer. I had gone to school for automotive upholstery, but had never done furniture before, but I told them I could do it. 

F: And Revive Upholstery was born!

C:  Not quite. We both ended up finding full-time jobs, but Leland would do projects for Jim and Donna to make extra money. When he first started, he was doing everything out of our living room and garage. We used to have couches in our hallway, and there would be staples all over the floor. It was kind of a nightmare, but he started getting really good at what he was doing and more people were seeking him out. Pretty soon he was spending all his free time doing upholstery.

F: So when did Revive become an actual business?

L: I spent about two years doing the upholstery out of the house, and also selling vintage items online. I had a cabinet on craigslist, and Robert (Robert Rahm from Beam & Anchor) came by to take a look. We got to talking and he mentioned he had a building and was looking for people to form kind of a shared creative space. I immediately jumped at the opportunity. We met with Robert & Jocelyn a few times and in July of 2011, I moved into Beam & Anchor and formed Revive. 

F: Were you both excited?

C: I was actually terrified. Leland originally was going to keep his full-time gig and transition slowly into his new career. However, he abruptly quit his job about a month and half later, and I admit I freaked out. I knew he was talented, but I was so scared of the unexpected and the economy was still pretty bad. I gave him a hard time about quitting. He made the right decision though, and I have never been so happy to have been so wrong.

F: What made you change your mind?

C: There were a lot of reasons. Leland is one of the most talented, driven men I've ever met. He's extremely determined and watching him take this huge leap was really inspiring. Incredibly scary, but inspiring. We also had this great community of people who were all kind of in the same boat. It was an amazing support system for him, and I will never be able to thank all the lovely people from Beam and Anchor enough.

L: I also think that the city itself had a lot to do with changing her mind. Portland is such a supportive city for small businesses. The people here generally want you to succeed and are willing to help you in any way they can. We could have never started Revive in California, and I'm so glad we ended up here.

F: So how have things changed since 2011?

L: Well we've grown a lot. We have a great clientele, and have had the chance to work with some amazing interior designers, and other craftsmen. We hired a full-time employee, Kelly Rogers, last year which has helped us so much. She's an incredibly talented designer. We also have a great part-timer, Carson Brom, who helps with tear-down and keeping us current on whats hip in music. Chelsea got to join the team this year too, working on all the behind the scene, admin, business-y stuff. We're also concentrating more on one of kind pieces that we get to design and produce. I'm also focusing on producing a product line in 2015. It's been a long journey, but I feel like we're finally getting where we want to be and having fun.

C: We've also had some amazing opportunities just in the last year. Rejuvenation invited us to have a pop-up in their Portland location. It has been such a huge deal for us! We'd never had a showroom before and were only able to display a few items here and there in different spots. Having a whole room of just our pieces has just been such an amazing experience. It's led to Rejuvenation carrying a line of our pillows, which is awesome. We also were invited to show a piece at The Museum of Contemporary Craft, which is just an honor. It's one of my favorite museums in town, so it's so cool to say we have a chair there. 

Kenton: Home of the Paul Bunyan Statue

F: Speaking of showrooms, I was told you have some big news?

L: Yes, we are excited to announce that we will be moving into our own building in Kenton this spring.

F: That is exciting! I hear there's a pretty nice park near by...

C: Yes, there is. It's a fantastic building, and although we are sad to be leaving our home at Beam & Anchor, we are really stoked to be making this move.

F: Well it seems we just have time for one more question, so seeing it's the new year, do you have any resolutions?

C: I have quite a few, but the biggest one is just to be more organized. Boring, but with the move and all the things we want to accomplish, it's definitely a necessity.

L: I don't know! Eat more candy? I just want this year to be one of the best years for Revive. There's just so much to look forward to, it's exciting.

The Revive Crew at the Feet of Paul Bunyan:
From Left: Fozzie, Leland, Chelsea, Kelly and Carson

Next week: Join us for a small glimpse into the wondrous life of Kelly Rogers. 

Woof. 

2014: A Year at Revive

Photo Credit: Nicolle Clemetson www.nicolleclemetson.com

2014 was quite a year for Revive Designs, although you may not have known as I was a terrible blogger. Well, I know what my new year's resolution is this year...

It was a year of firsts for myself and the entire Revive Designs crew. We had our first international order, our first wholesale order, our first Pop-Up shop at Rejuvenation, our first piece in The Museum of Contemporary Craft, and our first magazine feature in Portland Monthly. I had my first professional photo shoot, which I must say, was quite a pleasure. Who knew you could get a whole sleeve of graham crackers for just staying in place? We had the opportunity to work with amazingly talented people, who were also exceptional belly scratchers. We fell in love with fabrics, found beautiful projects, and played around with new techniques. We, or should I say Leland, developed a slight sewing machine hoarding problem, but hey!, at least it's a tax write-off.

The team at Revive grew (slightly) and we were able to welcome Chelsea as a full time...wait, what is it you do again? Something behind the scenes, right? Anyways, our crew now consists of Leland, the gorgeously talented Kelly, our music machine Carson, Chelsea and me. It's a pretty full house, but we couldn't ask for a better group of folks. Now if they could all spend a little less time "working" and a little more time rubbing my head.

Speaking of space, we have some exciting news for everyone, which I will get into tomorrow. No, seriously. I will be hosting a series of interviews this coming year "Fridays with Foz", and my first interview will post tomorrow featuring Leland and Chelsea and their big 2015 news. It's exciting, it even has pictures.

Well I stayed up quite late last night, and all this typing has tuckered me out. I'm off to take the first nap of the new year.

Happy New Year.

Woof.

The week of the "Well-Worn" "Luxe" Bazaar

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday, I know I did. Nothing better than laying beneath a table full of happy, thankful, clumsy people eating turkey. We took a couple of days off to enjoy visiting family, and long walks, but are back in the shop....and it looks like we may never leave. Leland is in deep preparation for this weekends fourth annual Portland Bazaar.

Leland and crew have created two unique collections to showcase at this years Bazaar. "Well-Worn" is an homage to Leland's love of vintage and "Luxe" is a new foray into awesomeness - well at least that's how he describes it.  The "Well-Worn" collection uses vintage canvases, wool, and distressed leathers to create a downtown vibe, while "Luxe" will feature velvets, and suedes for a more uptown feel. They all seem really excited about the new pieces, but I don't think we'll be leaving the shop at all this week. So if anyone wants to come and meet me for a walk, just let me know.

I'll try to get a few sneak peaks up before the Bazaar.

Woof.

This Weekend!

The months just seem to fly by, and already we're approaching the holiday season. While I am resting up for the coming excitement, Leland is busy creating a plethora of new items just in time for:

I'm planning on attending just to see the newest set-up of the Revive Pop-Up Shop, and I hope to see you there too!

We've got quite few more events lined up, and I'll tell you more about them as they approach. In the mean time, the Revive Pop-Up Shop is open everyday, and we also have a new piece at The Museum of Contemporary Craft.

Exciting things to come!

Woof.

Revive(ing) Rejuvenation - or - the tale of how we came to have a pop-up shop at Rejuvenation

I realize my posting habits have become a little sporadic of late, but so much has been going on I just haven't been able to steal the laptop away from the shopkeepers. A few months ago we were invited to participate at The Sunday Emporium at Rejuvenation. We, well not me, (somehow I always got left at home) loved the space and seeing our furniture in their beautiful store. I guess Rejuvenation loved us as well, they invited us to host a pop-up shop in their store for the next three months.

To say the shopkeepers were ecstatic would be an understatement. They have been so excited by this opportunity, I don't think they've talked about anything else since the initial meeting. Who can blame them? Rejuvenation has always been one of our favorite places to drool over and they love dogs!

We've spent the last few weeks carefully pulling together a selection of furniture and vintage items from Leland's private collection. Using some of the techniques I've taught him, he put together some of the best furniture he's made to date. 

We moved into the space on Friday 8/29/14. Here is a quick before shot:

With the help of the amazingly talented Liz Michel we moved all of our furniture and vintage goods into the space. Liz is one amazing stylist! Here are a few after shots from her camera:

All that hard work really paid off, the pop-up shop looks amazing. We opened up the next day and Leland and Chelsea had a chance to talk to the amazing staff at Rejuvenation about our products. The shopkeepers could not stop gushing about how great the Rejuvenation team is to work with. I think Chelsea used the word lovely at least a 100 times. From what they say, I can't wait to finally meet them. 

It's been an exhausting few weeks, and my job is just getting started! I've been tasked with telling you about each of the pieces that Leland has made and what will be coming next. It seems that for the next three months they'll be changing the space pretty regularly, so look for updates often.

The shopkeepers would like me to take a moment to thank a few people:

Kate from Portland Flea thank you for inviting us to participate in Sunday Emporium and always being a huge supporter of Revive. You are one incredibly awesome lady!

Alex from Rejuvenation - Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity! We are so excited and grateful for this chance to showcase our work. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Liz Michel - Thank you for being a killer stylist! You are so amazingly talented, we will be singing your praises for years to come. We can't wait to work with you again!

The entire staff at Rejuvenation - We are so grateful for each and everyone of you. We could not have asked for a better group of people. All of you have been so kind and generous, we feel so lucky to get the chance to work with you. Thank you so much for all of your help!

Well, I think that about covers it. I hope everyone gets a chance to stop by the pop-up shop. I may be there from time to time checking in, so feel free to say hello and scratch the belly.

Woof.