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Friday Five with PATCH NYC

patch nyc

Inspired by a hat John Ross’ mom Yasuko made for her son’s first New York winter, designers John Ross and Don Carney established PATCH NYC Inc. in the fall of 1997. Using hand-dyed wool from the Union Square Farmers Market and vintage buttons for embellishment, the designers created a small collection of hand-crochet wool hats that became an immediate success.

PATCH NYC’s appreciation for color, vintage embroidery, appliqué and beading techniques quickly become the signature style of the brand. Over time, PATCH NYC has remained true to their aesthetic while branching out and expanding their product line to produce scarves, purses, totes, fabrics, home décor and jewelry for some of the finest retail stores in the world.

Recently, PATCH NYC has partnered with home furnishings design and décor experts West Elm to develop a collection that brings the wit and whimsy of PATCH NYC to consumers at an accessible price.

Each item in the collection embraces the hand-crafted, authentic and vintage inspired styling of PATCH NYC with a special twist as designers Don and John have brought their creativity and color to pillows, prints and for the first time ever, plates and entertaining pieces.

Here is John and Don’s Friday Five:

1. Vintage Nature Books
We’ve always liked collecting vintage picture books and we found these beautifully illustrated tomes in a Used Bookstore near Boston. Each volume is filled with the most amazing and inspiring engravings and even a few color plates as well. These vintage images have helped to inspire our botanical and woodland creature art as in the imagery for West Elm.

2. Klein Reid Porcelain
We’re big fans of Klein Reid porcelain. Not only are their designs beautiful but they are also two of the funniest, nicest artists/designers we know. This yummy curry yellow bowl is from Klein Reid’s Hawthorne collection. We love mixing and matching different serving pieces and this bowl is one of our new favorites.

3. French Striped Linen Fabric
We love the look and feel of a nice quality linen and we’ve used a lot of great linens on scarves and home accessories in our recent PATCH NYC collections.

4. Vintage Lamps
We have a bit of a problem when it comes to vintage lamps: we can’t pass them up. We’ve become quite adept at re-wiring so that our home and studio are both illuminated by a lot of vintage, re-furbished lamps…these are some of our latest, yet to be re-wired, finds.

5. Vintage Jewelry Findings
One of our favorite categories to design is our one-of-a-kind jewelry featuring vintage findings because it gives us an excuse to dig around flea-markets and antique shops looking for interesting treasures to incorporate into each.

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.