Brooklyn, USA: Diane Ruengsorn's ideas were born from her experiences in the furniture industry. While apprenticing for a furniture designer/manufacturer, she witnessed the chemicals and materials that workers were exposed to on a daily basis. Many of these substances are known to cause cancer or other chronic health conditions. This led her to believe that products could be produced with people-friendly materials and methods that didn't harm anyone in the process. "Live well, live right" is her philosophy; that you can have products that enhance your life while taking into account people and our planet. Her mission is to offer consumers affordable home products that adhere to environmentally and socially responsible standards.
Special Designer Offer: Receive 20% off Diane's Spice Block!
Use Code NL0111 at checkout!
Designer Spotlight: Rhea Alexander
New York City, USA: Rhea studied at Parsons School of Design. Her career followed an organic yet logical progression. She practiced architecture and industrial design while making art furniture from found objects, showing them in local NY galleries. Early on, what intrigued her was how the role of the designer can play in sustainability both from an environmental position as well as from a human perspective. She opened DIGS in 1991, determined to bridge the gap between design, handicraft, and fair-trade, using sustainable materials in an attempt to preserve artisanal handicraft. She has been consulting for the private sector and NGO's such as Aid to Artisans and USAID with the similar mission.
Special Designer Offer: Receive 20% off Rhea's Wood Product!
Use Code NL0104 at checkout!
Designer Spotlight: Patricia Naves
Bello Horizonte, Brazil: Patricia Naves started Oiti Designs in 2004, but attributes her passion for design to her small apartment growing up. Her mother thinks that her small bedroom made her aware of space from an early age. When she was 18, she moved to Australia for a year. There, she was impressed with the wide open spaces and large sidewalks. She returned to Brazil then enrolled in University at the School of Architecture, UFMG. In her second year, she spend a semester in Finlan where she became enamored with Scandinavian architecture and design. The aesthetic resonated with her so much, she fused the two styles from Scandinavia and Brazil. Patricia is currently studying design in Finland.
| Special Designer Offer: Receive 20% off Patricia's TOAST IT! COASTERS Use Code NL1221 at checkout! |
| Happy Holidays, From your friends at DIGS |
ATTN: LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY SHOPPERS
You did it again.
It's the week before Christmas and you haven't even started your shopping.
Listen, you're only human and you're busy and you're stressed out and who really has the time to go to the mall and pick through the leftovers, not to mention it's getting really cold out and you have lunches to make and you're spreading yourself too thin and you know you always get the flu this time of year.
Breathe.
Pour a glass of wine. Put on your sweatpants. Turn on your computer.
Shop at DIGS.com - you will find something for the entire family. Seriously, we've got everyone from Grandkid to Grandma covered. Heck, we'll even give you 20% off our Signature Collection because, yes, we totally know how you feel.
Use Coupon code SC118 for 20% off our Signature collection!
Designer Spotlight: Patricia Juana Caceres
Patricia Juana Caceres 
has been connected to textiles since she was very young because both her parents are artisans. She studied at The University Mayor de San Andres in La Paz in Communications and later studied tendencies and quality control through the mayor's office of La Paz. She attended USAID program BCCN focus on designs, then a 2 year course on design and use of colours through COPROCA. Later she worked with international designer Brigitte Landawer.
Her main inspiration as a designer is "when you design you play with the imagination, forms and techniques of weaving".
Five years ago, she build her own workshop together with her husband (Carlos Soliz).
For Patricia working with Awayu means she can help in a direct way the community and especially the people of El Alto since they (Awayu) can give work to many artisans and at the same time she can help the artisans to improve their techniques and teach them them about tendencies and ways to improve the products that they produce.
See Patricias AMAZING handknit, superfine Alpaca products on DIGS.com
20% OFF SIGNATURE COLLECTION!
It's Official: The Holidays are here! Skip the lines on black friday and shop at Digs.com! To kick off the season we are offering 20% off our signature collection, just use CODE: SC118 at checkout. Eco and luxurious - gifts for the entire family!
NYC Fair Trade Coalition Holiday Fair
Join us at Assembly Hall Judson Memorial Church for a Holiday Fair! Time is running out to shop, so you don't want to miss your opportunity to buy gorgeous DIGS products in person! We will have tons of great holiday gifts and stocking stuffers, and we would love to see you there!
Saturday, December 4: 10am-5pm
Sunday, December 5: 2pm-5pm
50% off our Black Marble Oil Diffusers!
Secrets out, folks! Our handmade, Egyptian Black Marble Oil Diffusers are available at 50% off! Click here for the coupon code, and check out 11 other eco-friendly companies offering green and gorgeous goodies at 50% off! Thanks to our friends at Celebrate Green! Hurry, while supplies last!!!
Italian Sausage with Grapes
Courtesy of Darrin Montgomery of Urbancase
Italian sausage with grapes
"1 to 1.5 pounds of Italian sausage
3-4 cups red grapes
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
Brown sausage in a skillet and remove just before done and place on a warm plate or in a warm oven.
Drain excess fat from the skillet and throw in the grapes. Cook until they start to collapse, finish with balsamic vinegar or lemon juice and transfer to a plate. Serve the sausage on the bed of grapes.
Grilled radicchio or braised fennel go with it quite nicely.
A light red works really well. Or...Lev Black Lion beer is one of my favorites."
Ugandan Homemade Pancakes
Thanks to our friend Chris at Invisible Children for this AMAZING UGANDAN PANCAKE recipe! Move over Bisquick!
Serves 6
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 cubs (or as desired) milk or water
6 tbs sugar
2 eggs
3 tbl butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
touch of cinnamon
Mix it all together and add what you will: strawberries, bananas, oatmeal, or chocolate chips! MMmm!
DIGS.com Launch party a HUGE success!
Monday, November 8 was a proud day for the DIGS team! We celebrated the launch of DIGS.com with a shopping and cocktail event at NYC's historic National Arts Club. We had an AMAZING turn out and happy shoppers left with great new products from our exclusive online collection. Mend was there showing their signature bags with video loops of their moving films, telling the unheard stories of Northern Uganda. Our friends at Same Sky were also there, displaying their gorgeous collection of handmade glass-beaded bracelets, made by genocide survivors in Rwanda.
For more pictures from the event, check out our facebook page! Don't forget to "like" us so you get all the news and invites on our upcoming events. You really don't want to miss them!
I'm in a Shea Butter Romance....
... and apparently I'm not the only one. Mighty Goods is raving about our Pomegranate Whipped Shea Butter, and I am personally obsessed with the Black Orchid Ultra Rich Shea Cream. Check out what Mighty Goods has to say!
Francine LeFrak - Founder of Same Sky
Award-winning producer, accomplished entrepreneur, and respected philanthropist, Francine LeFrak is an unusual blend of creativity, smarts, and soul. Where most of Hollywood’s elite will lend their name or face, Ms. LeFrak applies a “hands-on” approach to all of her business and charitable endeavors, offering her time and expertise.
After a decade-long career in show business as a Producer, she dove into film, focusing on social issues and taboo topics. “My aim is to shed light and put a human face on important social issues,” she says. “I want to explore ways to connect people so together we can find solutions to global problems.” Her work has illuminated sensitive issues including AIDS, racial intolerance, war, the injustices of our prison system, substance abuse, the peril of neo-Nazism, and the quest for identity and self-knowledge. A familiar face on the New York social scene, Ms. LeFrak and her husband Rick Freidberg inspire real change through their infectious energy and highly regarded expertise. She has served as a board member for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, for which she has raised millions of dollars, and has often hosted their annual Gala.
SAME SKY: In 2008, Francine founded SAME SKY, a fair-trade company whose mission is to empower women worldwide and inspire a movement of women empowering women. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, women in Rwanda were subjected to sexual violence on a massive scale. According to the International Criminal Tribunal, more than 250,000 women were raped and, of the survivors, approximately 70% were infected with HIV/AIDS. In addition, they were left impoverished after their husbands, fathers, and brothers were murdered. SAME SKY was born with the goal of empowering these women to rebuild their lives and communities by giving them the tools to become entrepreneurs and lead self-sustaining lives.
How do they do it? SAME SKY’s trade-not-aid initiative uses jewelry to effect change in Rwanda – one woman at a time. SAME SKY works with Gahaya Links a company that employs HIV+ women, all of whom are survivors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. These women artisans have been trained to crochet and make bracelets using our unique hand-blown glass beads. They are given a marketable skill and consistent employment, the two essential factors needed to rebuild their lives and those of their families.
These fabulous glass-beaded bracelets are ALL over Hollywood! Halle Berry, Donna Karen, Alicia Keys, and Jessica Alba (just to name a few) love Same Sky’s bracelets, and support Ms. LeFrak in her mission to help Genocide survivors.
YOU can own your own! Adorn your wrist and feel GOOD about it! So many gorgeous colors to choose from, find them all at DIGS.com
Crafts in Chelsea Craft Fair!
Join D.I.G.S. at the PS 11 Fall Festival 2010 on Saturday October 16, 10-6pm and ENTER TO WIN A $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO DIGS.COM! Start your holiday shopping early and help support our public schools! We will be there showcasing our eco-friendly jewelry, fashion, home decor, and lifestyle products - gift ideas for everyone! We will also have a raffle for a $100 gift certificate to www.digs.com (And when you're done shopping, treat yourself to something sweet for only $1 at the Bake sale!) Bring the kids and make a day of it! There will be games, bouncers, arts + crafts, face painting, live entertainment and more! PS11 is located in the heart of Chelsea on West 21st between 9th/10aves not far from the Highline & galleries. Students have free admittance, non-PS11 kiddos are $10.
WWW.DIGS.COM HAS TAKEN FLIGHT!
DIGS is proud to announce the launch of the new DIGS.COM; a robust online store with hundreds of new sustainable and fair trade home, decorative accessories, and gift products. Fusing contemporary design with traditional craft, our new line is one of a kind in both design and production. Meet the faces and hands that have created our luxurious new collection! The new site features slideshows that tell the exotic stories of designers at large working with artisans from around the globe or around the corner. Meet the Designers
Browse, Shop and Learn at DIGS.com!
Calling all globe-trekkers!
Are you a designer working in a foreign country? Are you a creative person whose experience abroad has inspired and amazed? Share it with us! Email your story to Tracy@digs.com (don't forget to include pictures!) and we might even post it on our page!
E-commerce chapter 0
Initially I thought E-commerce would be like sitting on the edge of the retail sandbox, turned out to be a sandstorm of an undertaking, swirling and stripping everything we thought we knew. Similar to child birth and with about the same amount of sleep in the first few months...as they say, what doesn't kill you, makes you ahem...too exhausted and elated to think clearly. We hope you enjoy the new place and come celebrate with us all the magnificent talent.
Habitat
[caption id="attachment_62" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Chinook"]
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As a product designer who studied architecture, I reflect on how people live, a lot. I travel the world, observe and explore. I am fascinated with how people build and decorate be it a hut, house or hovel. I think about how we live, what we use, how to improve it or offer options.
The other day, my son was watching Sesame Street and "the word of the day" was HABITAT. We started to discuss the different habitats for animals and people. When we walked to pre-school, I noticed one of our neighbors, but this time in context. We have mused that he is an ex-rocket scientist from Colorado now living out of his Chinook and hanging out in the streets of New York, we have not met but each week when alternate side of the street parking takes place, he some how starts the engine and moves it. I often can hear it start and I am drawn to the window in fascination, voyeuristically wondering about who he is and how he lives. What does he have in there? It is filled to the rim with black plastic bags, carrying what? I have seen him (you can imagine) he is old, slight build, has long grey hair and beard. Once I tried to offer my help when he needed to move it because he turns it on, puts it in neutral, steers from outside and pushes it into the street, waits for the sweeper then pushes it back into place, but he didn't hear me or just didn't acknowledge and I didn't press, feeling perhaps I had invaded his privacy. I am fond of this man, of his tenacity, of his choice of habitat.
DIGS at New York International Gift Fair 2010
[caption id="attachment_74" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Our talented Peruvian Designers"]
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DIGS launched a new collection featuring many bright new Peruvian Designer; Kareen Nishimura, Ricardo Geldres Piumati, mary Luz Diaz and the venerable Vacide Erda Zimic whom has been with DIGS for over 2 years. We also carried designs by Frederic Alcantara and Rhea Alexander.
The collection was well received and will be selling to many museum stores nation wide and many will be featured on our upcoming newly developed and released e-commerce website. We will be featuring various collections designed by our team of designers for both wholesale and retail international markets and have plans for expansion next year. Our goal is to team up designers with artisan groups working in fair trade and ecological materials.
[caption id="attachment_75" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Digs at the New York International Gift Fair, Aug 2010"]
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Bring your Shovel and Pail- DIGS goes E-Commerce in a BIG way
As a child my parents taught me the meaning of stewardship of caring for everything around us and of giving back...my mom, early on, made me aware of our collective footprint, of the macro and micro, of observing and learning...we travelled a lot as a family, saw and experienced many diverse lifestyles, these concepts would weave throughout my life and form who I am today.
I see life as a sandbox...
well today maybe it is more a mix with soil and compost too...for almost 20yrs (hard to believe) DIGS had been a sustainably minded, designer run, wholesale business, selling to top international retailers such as Bergdorf's, Bloomingdales, Harrod's, Lane Crawford and the like. Also to the trade (interior designers + hospitality) making private label products for bespoke brands such as Mandarin Oriental and St. Regis. Since inception, only dabbling into direct consumer sales.
Now, 20 yrs later, this social enterprise, is putting a stake into the virtual sandbox determined to share with you, our pearls and nuggets we've discovered on our journeys by creating an e-commerce site where we bring to you a lifetime of finds, talent, and amazing stories certain to be keepsakes.
Thanks Mom!