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Life & Work with Blamo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Blamo. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Born in rural Idaho by Spencer Hansen and Shayne Maratea, Blamo has evolved through a continuous flow of influence from photography, painting, movement, street culture, the music industry and world travel.

We’ve grown from hand-making individual pieces to producing entire collections, yet we’ve been able to maintain detail and quality by self-producing and distributing all our goods in our self-designed and custom-built workshop. Their stateside office space has moved from Oakland to San Francisco to Los Angeles over the last 16 years. Their current showroom is located in DTLA.

Their production team resides in Bali and they have grown over the years from renting workshops to building their dream workshop in 2015 with space for various creative modalities, resources for visiting artists and a place to call home for Spencer and Shayne and their staff. Remaining true to their vision and the desire to create a sustainable and modular workshop, they designed the majority of the buildings from retired Javanese fishing boats. Six boats were purchased ranging in age from 30-60 years old and made mostly from hardwoods like teak, kesambi and akasia. The boats were dismantled plank by plank, some while floating in water, some hauled out of a meter of mud, loaded onto trucks and transported from Java to Bali for the next chapter of their lives. In Bali, a group of skilled construction workers planned, sanded and cured the recycled wood that would eventually compose the majority of the six workshop structures.

Inspired by traditional Indonesian-style buildings the compound is comprised of a limisan, acting as the main building with sewing machines, design tables and management and three joglo-style structures home to wood carving, metal working, leather forming, millinery, ceramics and staff housing. A photography studio with additional artist lofts and living quarters for both Spencer and Shayne and visiting artists completes the grass courtyard.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Hahaha – It’s been an adventure, and to quote Yvon Chouinard, “It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong” We have a great team and as business partners, we work really well together, without that foundation nothing would be possible, but owning and managing and producing and selling has about every roadblock and detour you can imagine. Luckily being creative helps us find creative solutions as well.

When we started there was such little support for small businesses, everything from minimum orders for supplies to payment gateways was challenging. There are so many more resources now, but also the pace of the world keeps getting faster and the value of Slow Fashion takes special customers to appreciate. People are used to ordering something today and receiving it tomorrow. We don’t function on that level and it makes it challenging to meet expectations. I will also say we have been fortunate to have the best customers for over 16 years.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Well, a lot of times when people find our brand, I think they are surprised. We don’t necessarily fit into any one category. We design and produce a lot of different handmade items, from our animal onesies to our signature Socky balaclavas to our object art and clothing. I think that alone sets us apart from other companies. We are the exception in a lot of cases, which means there is a lot of navigating new ways of doing something. I think we are most proud of the fact that we built this company from hand-dying felt hats on the kitchen stove to producing thousand of handmade items. We stand behind everything we make. We offer free repairs for the life of your garment. We care about the health and well-being of our team and have really created a family work environment, especially in Bali where we live for half the year. Our workshop is a haven for creativity and that feels important to us. Self-producing is also something that is extremely important to us. It limits our ability for growth in some ways, but allows us to be certain everything we are making is high quality.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
Ohhh – LA where anything and everything can happen on any given day! I love the day-to-day in the streets of LA. The possibilities are endless, you just have to brave the traffic to make it there.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Spencer Hansen

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