Friday, June 22, 2007
IT IS easy to see why Lara Bohinc's creations are selling well in the Middle East. Bold and brassy quite literally her jewellery and bags are unashamedly glitzy and demand attention.
The Slovenian designer is having her hair done when I arrive for the interview at Boutique 1 in Boulevard at Emirates Towers, Dubai. When she greets me, apologetic for the 10-minute delay, she is a vision in a purple silk Spijkers en Spijkers dress and killer black patent heels by Yves Saint Laurent. Her chestnut tresses and natural beauty seem more fitting of a model than a designer whose work is largely behind the scenes.
But this is a woman who knows it's all about making an impact and doing it right.
At an early age, she was creating necklaces out of pasta, making her own clothes and bags, painting her mother's chairs for a different look and rearranging her bedroom "five times a week". Her natural flair led her to study industrial and graphic design at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts, in her home city of Ljubljana.
"We were doing mobile phones, chairs, salt and pepper shakers and architecture, and then I started making jewellery at home," she remembers.
"I realised I needed to learn the craft of how to make jewellery because you need to understand the process before you can go into it."
It prompted Bohinc to do a Master's degree in jewellery and metalwork at the Royal College of Art, in London.
By 1997 she had launched her own label, Lara Bohinc 107, and in the next decade she would work with the likes of Gucci, Lanvin, Guy Laroche and Julien Macdonald to name a few. Today, her brand is burgeoning and has been growing at the rate of 50 per cent every six months for the last two years. She has dropped the number in her label and has just renewed a long-term contract to design fine jewellery for Cartier.
Her latest collection of fashion jewellery, bags, sunglasses and leather goods for autumn/winter 2007 carries the theme of knots, plaits and pleats in designs that are the result of fine technology and clever technique.
"When I first started making jewellery I had to make most of the pieces myself," says the 35-year-old. "It is very time consuming work and I am not very patient so I began looking for techniques that would make it quicker."
By using photo etching, Bohinc achieves intricate designs on metal which would have taken hours of concentrated labour to create by hand. Computer design and laser cutting also serve to enhance efficiency for the business, which continually needs to adjust to meet growing demand.
But who are the clients with this insatiable appetite for more?
"Our customers are very varied," says Bohinc. "My friends like it, my mum likes it, my mum's friends like it. It's from young, trendy girls to older, professional women, such as lawyers and architects. And women in their 60s and 70s really like it because there is always an element in it that is classical."
Although she began with fashion jewellery, Bohinc branched out with sunglasses in 2003 and developed her first range of bags a year or so later a move that has paid off as the bags now represent about half of her business. In July, she will add another string to her bow by introducing a fine jewellery collection to her brand with a launch at Harrods in London.
In contrast to the gold and platinum-plated brass she uses for her fashion jewellery and bags, the fine jewellery, featuring 30 different styles, will be created in white, rose and yellow gold, with diamonds and semi-precious stones.
"It is good to have different things to design and it is really nice to have these variations so I don't get bored," she says.
Why was the label originally called Lara Bohinc107?
The designer explains: "When I started, years ago, people couldn't say my name properly [it is pronounced Bo-hints] so I always used to say it was Lara Boeing 747, as a joke. But a few years later, Boeing caught up and said they had the licence to use 747 so we had to stop using it. I wanted to use my name and a number because people remembered it, so I chose 107 which was the number on the tag I was given in hospital when I was born."
These days, however, Bohinc no longer needs a number for people to remember her name and the 107 has now been dropped from the label. Gulf News
The Slovenian designer is having her hair done when I arrive for the interview at Boutique 1 in Boulevard at Emirates Towers, Dubai. When she greets me, apologetic for the 10-minute delay, she is a vision in a purple silk Spijkers en Spijkers dress and killer black patent heels by Yves Saint Laurent. Her chestnut tresses and natural beauty seem more fitting of a model than a designer whose work is largely behind the scenes.
But this is a woman who knows it's all about making an impact and doing it right.
At an early age, she was creating necklaces out of pasta, making her own clothes and bags, painting her mother's chairs for a different look and rearranging her bedroom "five times a week". Her natural flair led her to study industrial and graphic design at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts, in her home city of Ljubljana.
"We were doing mobile phones, chairs, salt and pepper shakers and architecture, and then I started making jewellery at home," she remembers.
"I realised I needed to learn the craft of how to make jewellery because you need to understand the process before you can go into it."
It prompted Bohinc to do a Master's degree in jewellery and metalwork at the Royal College of Art, in London.
By 1997 she had launched her own label, Lara Bohinc 107, and in the next decade she would work with the likes of Gucci, Lanvin, Guy Laroche and Julien Macdonald to name a few. Today, her brand is burgeoning and has been growing at the rate of 50 per cent every six months for the last two years. She has dropped the number in her label and has just renewed a long-term contract to design fine jewellery for Cartier.
Her latest collection of fashion jewellery, bags, sunglasses and leather goods for autumn/winter 2007 carries the theme of knots, plaits and pleats in designs that are the result of fine technology and clever technique.
"When I first started making jewellery I had to make most of the pieces myself," says the 35-year-old. "It is very time consuming work and I am not very patient so I began looking for techniques that would make it quicker."
By using photo etching, Bohinc achieves intricate designs on metal which would have taken hours of concentrated labour to create by hand. Computer design and laser cutting also serve to enhance efficiency for the business, which continually needs to adjust to meet growing demand.
But who are the clients with this insatiable appetite for more?
"Our customers are very varied," says Bohinc. "My friends like it, my mum likes it, my mum's friends like it. It's from young, trendy girls to older, professional women, such as lawyers and architects. And women in their 60s and 70s really like it because there is always an element in it that is classical."
Although she began with fashion jewellery, Bohinc branched out with sunglasses in 2003 and developed her first range of bags a year or so later a move that has paid off as the bags now represent about half of her business. In July, she will add another string to her bow by introducing a fine jewellery collection to her brand with a launch at Harrods in London.
In contrast to the gold and platinum-plated brass she uses for her fashion jewellery and bags, the fine jewellery, featuring 30 different styles, will be created in white, rose and yellow gold, with diamonds and semi-precious stones.
"It is good to have different things to design and it is really nice to have these variations so I don't get bored," she says.
Why was the label originally called Lara Bohinc107?
The designer explains: "When I started, years ago, people couldn't say my name properly [it is pronounced Bo-hints] so I always used to say it was Lara Boeing 747, as a joke. But a few years later, Boeing caught up and said they had the licence to use 747 so we had to stop using it. I wanted to use my name and a number because people remembered it, so I chose 107 which was the number on the tag I was given in hospital when I was born."
These days, however, Bohinc no longer needs a number for people to remember her name and the 107 has now been dropped from the label. Gulf News