Boutique 208 is proud to introduce our current featured member - Angela Todd of AngelLeighDesigns. We hope you enjoy reading a bit about her in her own words.
AngelLeighDesigns has been represented by Boutique 208 for several years now. I quit my full time library job in July and am getting more active there. I'm also starting a cozy family-focused label called Funnermother, leaving my vintage items and whatnot in my AngelLeighDesigns label. You'll see both labels in the Boutique. For me, handmade is part of my rural Maine history, but it's also an important politics of the future. In an economy of handmade, producers get the power of production and creative control. Consumers are offered not just the illusion of choices (Smucker’s or Welch’s grape jelly), but real choices (homemade mango jam). Societies benefit with engaged producers, somewhat leveled playing fields, less dominance and more engagement. Handmade purchases feed artists and families, not corporations.
Individuality cannot be expressed through mass produced objects. It is a structural impossibility. Shopping at the department store downtown I would have five choices. Working with a seamstress or artist on a handmade wardrobe, I have a world of choices. Handmade is freedom.
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| A selection of sizes and colors of this silkscreened tee are in the Boutique! |
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| This hat celebrates adoption! Did the giraffe take on the attributes of his fish family? Or did a fish start to look like his adopted giraffe family? |
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| Felted bowls are great to fill with candy hearts, plushies, chocolate kisses, or jewelry. |
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| You'll see this vintage flashbulb pendant in the window. |
