Leftover face mask fabric turns into colorful bow ties.
If you’re designer Nisha Blackwell, when life gives you scraps, you make bow ties.
Her artisan bow tie company Knotzland switched gears to mask making in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Now she’s using those leftover fabrics to create one-ofa-kind colorful bow ties for what she’s dubbed as The Hope Collection.
“The collection came about quite organically,” she says. “The sheer action of doing this felt quite therapeutic in a way ... to take the pieces and put them all back together in a new way that brought new life just brought joy to my heart during the design process.”
The Pittsburgh-based brand launched in 2014 and specializes in handmade bow ties fabricated from upcycled materials. The company has rescued more than 2,500 pounds of unwanted textiles and fibers and turned them into dapper designs. In 2019, Ms. Blackwell opened a studio and showroom in Wilkinsburg.
She describes life since mid-March as “a roller coaster.” With clients canceling and postponing their weddings and events, Ms.
Blackwell teamed with Radiant Hall, Protohaven, Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, Firecracker Fabrics, Cut & Sew Studio and Kerf Case to make and distribute masks to those who had low or no access to them.
“One of the true turning points was the moment where other business owners and organizations offered to order masks from us,” she says. With a small grant from Bridgeway Capital’s Creative Business Accelerator program, they were then able to to begin to pay some of their 300 volunteers who couldn’t afford to keep working for free due to lost income.
“Now here we are eight weeks later making bow ties from the remnants,” she says. “We imagine a Zoom call where there’s a person with their own unique style behind the bow ties and shining through in the virtual realm.”
The ties start at $85 each at knotzland.com.