“All of life is a journey and we need the good with the bad to move forward.” Mehera Blum
Noblivity Spotlights Emerging Designer Mehera Blum
Company/Designer: Blumera | Mehera Blum
Designer Background Summary: I grew up in South Carolina and traveled the world extensively since my youth. I received my BFA, from Boston University, in acting, and also studied acting at LAMDA, in London. Blumera began on a whim in the winter of 2004.
How did you get started? In short, I was in Bali on my way to India and thought I could bring back a few pieces to sell. I would be walking down the street wearing one of my bags and people would stop me to find out where I got the bag. I would sell it, then and there, like a gypsy. Within four months Eva Mendes was wearing one of my bags in Life and Style Magazine and there was a blurb about Blumera. I had no idea my bag had been featured until I got an order from a girl in Chicago who wanted the bag from the magazine. The growth of Blumera has been very natural and organic. I started from scratch and built the company slowly, only implementing the next step when necessary.
What inspires your designs? I was very inspired by Bali. Travel, in general, inspires me. I love the fantasy of travel. Its like being in a fairy tale: tasting exotic food, speaking foreign tongues, meeting diverse people, and trotting distant lands. It is in this way that I see crossover between acting and design. It’s the creation process and I love the magic of creation. Bali has magic on the island different to any other. But every place has its an own unique magic and I love discovering it. The experience runs through me, through my heart, and is then manifested into physical form.
How would you describe your design style, design signatures and who is your targeted customer? Color is an integral part of my design style. Blumera’s signature silk lining is hand-dyed magenta. The inspiration for the color again comes from nature, this time in the form of a bougainvillea flower. The magenta silk is then hand-screened with the gold Blumera insignia. All the hardware is hand-carved flowers following the Blumera logo.
My target customer is anyone who loves art and who loves to express their self in what they are wearing. Blumera customer’s range in age from young girls to mature women, with the common thread that they love to wear something unique and special that tells a little story of who they are.
What designers inspire you? As a young girl, I appreciated the designs and colors of Matthew Williamson.
What obstacles did you have to overcome? The whole journey has been up and down, as life is for any one of us. I find that the beauty of our existence. It’s never easy, but each time hopefully we are better equipped to grow from the opportunities presented to us. Blumera was actually born out of a prayer to God. I was very ill with fatal levels of mercury poisoning. The mercury caused me to lose my memory: I was unable to carry on conversations or retain enough information to even read. Being an actress, this was obviously a problem. And so I prayed to God to help me: If I am unable to act at this time, please help me to find something to do, something that is still creative and that I can do while dealing with the illness.
How did you overcome them? It took me two years to get enough of the mercury out of my system. But I still worked, actually I continued acting in the recovery, and continued to make strides with Blumera.
What has been your greatest moment on your journey so far? That is too hard to quantify! I’d have to name a time that was long before Blumera “officially” began. I was seven years old and met my namesake, Mehera Irani, in India for the first time. No words can express how precious this time was with her.
What has been the biggest change in your designs so far? Two years ago I began my own factory, which produces exclusively for Blumera. That was a milestone because I gained complete control over what it was I was making. To me quality is most important. Every part of the bag is handmade, the only thing not, is the zipper. Blumera lining is made from pure silk, which is hand-dyed to magenta, and screened with the Blumera insignia, in gold. The hardware is all hand-carved. And every bag has a Blumera trinket bearing inspirational words by Meher Baba. And so, when I began the factory the designs became all me.
If money were no object what would you do right now? I’d really like to open a Blumera flagship store, and continue to open them all over the world. I have so many ideas so I’ll stop there or this interview would get very long!
What are the best and worst things about being a designer? Being a designer is only one component of what I do for Blumera, and so it’s easier to answer what are the best and worst parts of owning the company. The best parts are designing and watching the creation manifest from a mere figment of my imagination. That is incredible. To see a design be born, and take shape from my minds eye, to living and breathing in my hand or on my arm is really something. The worst part about being the owner is that all the pressure falls on my shoulders, and I don’t have anyone to share that with! No one quite feels the same way about Blumera as I do, and sometimes I wish I could share the burden.
Describe your typical day? Well, it depends on what phase I am in. If I am in the designing phase I am very nurturing with myself, and all creativity is a flow. It is when I am very relaxed that I design best. Actually, when I just relax, I have found that the impossible becomes possible. If I am in the sales phase, then I am out and about meeting people, talking on the phone, etc. And the list goes on. I wear every hat, and every day the hat looks just a little bit different.
What’s your philosophy of life? I believe we are here to grow and to experience the world fully, yet at the same time to develop a detachment to it: so that the world goes on around us and we are a part of it and in it, but never of it. Of course, this is much easier said then done.
If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently? Nothing. All of life is a journey and we need the good with the bad to move forward. If we did not experience darkness we would not know light.
When will you know you have made it? Haha! Good question! I am a perfectionist so I am not sure I can answer that. I endeavor to make Blumera a household name. So if that can be measured, perhaps at that time! But there are far more things beyond Blumera that I want to do. I would like to act again and do films all over the world in the native language and culture of that land. I’d like to start a family. So many things… but it always comes back to “create.” The most important thing is the relationship I have with myself: attaining equilibrium – an inner poise and grace. Perhaps then “I will have made it.”
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