Designing the Future: teeny house bunny

By Cassandra Handley

Many of us think about advancing our hobbies beyond our living room and recording an album, opening a bakery, or selling those newly-finished knit gloves and scarves. How many of us actually take it to the next level and parlay our hobbies and passions into a company? What would that even take, we wonder.

Ask Alexandra Wise, Dyana Nematallah, and Robin Reetz– the women behind the handmade jewelry and accessories company teeny house bunny. The trio that met and became friends during their senior year of studying Fashion Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), recently launched their accessories line and have watched as it’s taken off. In less than a year and a half, teeny house bunny– named after a combination of the nicknames they had for each other in school– has been featured in both Teen Vogue and ELLE magazines, is sold at boutiques nationwide from Brooklyn to Portland, and recently sold thousands of units to Anthropologie stores in the US and the UK.

With their second collection due out in just a few weeks, Cassandra Handley talked with teeny house bunny cofounder and co-owner, Robin Reetz, to get an insider’s perspective on what it takes to set your dreams adrift and what happens when they actually take flight.

Cassandra Handley: Starting a company is a huge undertaking. What made the three of you take the leap from hobbyists to small business owners?

Robin Reetz: “As fashion design students at SCAD in Savannah, Georgia, the three of us would always be playing with some sort of fabric scrap or lace fragment. We’d make bows out of them or glue them together. Some might say we were bored, but we had a creative energy. And when we came to New York, we all had jobs we liked, but eventually came to the realization that we wanted to do something on our own. We had the motivation and drive. We just needed to figure out how it was all going to happen.”

CH: What did it take to get teeny house bunny up and running?

RR: “A lot. The endeavor was all funded by us, with no help. We didn’t want to take out loans of any sort, because we didn’t want to have to start our company in the financial hole and have to pay anything back. In fact, we were really just experimenting with launching a company and then we started experiencing significant success. So we sort of had to backtrack. After realizing that there was a demand for our designs, we trademarked ourselves and went about getting our financial ducks in a row. We learned as we went along and are still learning.”

CH: With each of you having a part-time job, how does thb function on a day-to-day basis?

RR: “Even though we all work part time, we spend as much time in the studio as possible. We communicate largely by e-mail, and because we each have different days off, it’s only about once or twice a week that the three of us will actually be in the studio at the same time. We leave detailed notes for each other and pick up where the other left off.”

CH: Inspiration comes from many places, where do you each find yours?

RR: “All three of us have always been drawn to vintage and classically beautiful styles, like old, delicate hair pieces, interesting furniture, unique watch faces, and other designs. Sometimes one of us is drawn to one design genre over another. But since we all have our own, different personal tastes, our line gets balanced out. No one piece is too girly, or too worldly, or too modern. We try to strike a fine balance that includes all of our design aesthetic preferences.”

CH: What are some of the signature elements of thb’s designs?

RR: “We’ve really embraced a color palette of muted tones paired with bright colors. Like, pale peaches, whites, creams, with a purple or bold peach. We also tend to mix vintage pieces with bright colors. We don’t want any of our items to be too toned down, so we always want a pop of color in there.”

CH: Explain thb’s unique construction process.

RR: “Everything is handmade, by the three of us. We also dye the lace ourselves. We take a lot of pride in the fact that everything is made by hand and none of the work is outsourced. But as business picks up, we might need to hire on a few more hands. When Anthropologie ordered 4500 units for their Holiday 2009 collection, we still completed everything by hand. We worked in an assembly line. It was a painstaking process, because there were so many colors and so many components– leather, lace, fabric, and more. It was worth it, though.”

CH: How do you source your materials?

RR: “Over time, we’ve built personal relationships with many of the fabric and trim stores in the Fashion District, which is really just a series of all these crazy mom and pop stores. It’s been nice to get to know these store clerks, because everyone is so helpful and supportive with what we are doing.”

CH: What successes has thb had already?

RR: “A month and a half after launching teeny house bunny, we held a trunk show at Henri Bendel’s on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Our items sold like crazy and we witnessed Paris Hilton buying one of our pieces. We were thrilled with that success, but then it kept getting better. Emma Watson wore one of our designs on the cover of Teen Vogue last year, teeny house bunny was featured in the January 2010 issue of Elle, but, I think, our biggest success came when Anthropologie bought all those units from us.”

CH: What are some of the future goals for the company?

RR: “We really hope to take teeny house bunny as far as we can. We’ve experienced decent success so far, but we each still have to work part time. We’d also like to have a staff, eventually. But ultimately, we’d like to become a full-size company that also has a clothing line. Since we all studied fashion design in school, this has always been a passion and dream for all of us.”

CH: Besides your forthcoming second collection, do you have any upcoming projects?

RR: “We are looking to the future and planning ways to expand teeny house bunny. This includes a bridge line, or second line, of fine jewelry. This line would be more jewelry-focused, more practical, and include more pieces that can be used on a daily basis. The overall aesthetic would be simpler, because that’s where we see trends moving. Think, non-Blair Waldorf.”

More About the Women Behind teeny house bunny:

Alex Wise was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She enjoyed her time at SCAD on both the Atlanta and Savannah campuses and after graduating, moved to New York where she served as a designer at Liz Claiborne. She now works full time on teeny house bunny.

While Dyana Nematallah spent most of her childhood between Alabama and Georgia, there were five years during which she lived in Saudi Arabia. She began her career as a cosmetologist before going back to school to study Fashion Design. She now works part time as a hair stylist at the Yves Durif Salon and spends the rest of her time focusing on teeny house bunny.

Robin Reetz was born in the mountains of North Carolina and grew up just outside of Atlanta. She dedicated her college years to interning at magazines, and worked at Teen Vogue after she graduated from SCAD. She now works part time at a boutique in the Lower East Side and spends the remainder of her time working on teeny house bunny.

**To purchase designs by teeny house bunny, please visit their page on Etsy.