The New York premiere of Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams opened recently at the Brooklyn Museum. It explores the history of the House of Dior, boasting over 200 haute couture pieces and a wide array of sketches, toiles, accessories, photographs and videos of his incredible creations, as well as the work of his successors. Scroll through the gallery for a closer look.
Our latest journey through North Carolina led us to the gravesite of Chang & Eng Bunker, the world famous conjoined twins from Siam (now Thailand). Given the label of “original Siamese Twins”, the brothers began touring the world at 16 years old as a human curiosity. They held many exhibitions performing acrobatics, lecturing, and giving people a close up look at something they never imagined possible. They became incredibly popular celebrities throughout their touring history, earning enough money to purchase land and settle down near Mount Airy, NC. They tried to live separate lives as best they could even after countless doctors determined it was too great a risk to separate the twins. Chang & Eng married sisters, Adelaide and Sarah Yates, and had 21 children between both couples. After their deaths at age 64, Chang & Eng’s bodies were autopsied and cast by physicians associated with the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. The conjoined livers and the cast of their death torso are currently on display at the museum. Their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave on family property in NC, and eventually moved to the White Plains Baptist Church cemetery.
Meet the owners of Spooky Cat Press, THE coolest spooky gift and apparel company to come out of 2020. They were kind enough to answer some of our burning questions and share about their brand.
Can you give us an overview of the company and products?
Spooky Cat Press is an e-commerce brand with all the essentials for spooky living. We’re all about creating unique gift wrap, dark-humor greeting cards, cool graphic t-shirts, and other lifestyle products made for horror-loving, low-key goths like ourselves. We wanted to create beautifully designed spooky-themed products while still staying true to spooky themes. Check it out our website: www.spookycatpress.com
What is the inspiration behind the brand?
My husband, Terrence Horan, myself (Sandi Horan), and our creative partner, Troy Oxford are huge horror nerds (and goths in our younger days). We gravitate towards the strange, unusual, and cheeky. We went to Horror Cons like Monsterpalooza in Pasadena and Spooky Empire in Orlando and noticed there wasn’t a company selling spooky cards and gift wrap. It felt like the perfect opportunity to combine our art skills and spooky interests. We wanted to present horror themes in a palatable way that would be commercially viable. Much of our art is inspired by mid-century horror posters and classic horror characters. We’re huge fans of the artist Shag. It’s been really fun to flex the genre into seasonal collections beyond Halloween. The spooky folks really liked our Creepmas and Valloween collections and we’re currently working on Mummy’s Day and Tiki for summer.
How do you feel about starting a business in 2020?
Like most people, 2020 was a whirlwind of challenges. We’re lucky in the sense that Terrence, Troy, and I were already working from home and logistically set up for the lock-down in that regard. Terrence and Troy are employed full-time and their jobs were not affected. Because I’m a full-time freelancer, the big decrease of work in 2020 was what lit the fire (and muster up the courage) to make the full pivot to focus 100% on getting Spooky Cat Press up and running. We had been developing themes/artwork, registering for trademarks, and planning since 2018 but didn’t fully pursue the e-commerce business until March of 2020. We were also fortunate to have business-minded friends nearby who advised us on which e-com platform to use (Shopify), how to optimize our website for sales (a calculated science), and where to hire developers to help us build our website on a shoestring budget. We soft-launched, without ads, in September 2020 and had only sales from our friends. There were also a lot of website bugs and shipping woes we had to work out based on this initial start. With the help of a marketing professional, we relaunched in November, with a proper ad campaign in place, and quickly learned the value and reach of paid media. Thankfully, we’ve been growing ever since. It’s exciting and tremendously fulfilling…making all the late nights folding cards, rolling gift wrap, and the daily lessons in small business worthwhile!
How do you feel having a strong social media presence impacts your business?
Social media has been the catalyst to our growth and reaching the right audience. We knew visual content would play a critical role for an e-commerce brand but didn’t initially understand the magnitude of social media. One of the first steps we took early on was investing in proper photo gear and dedicating time to study photography. This has paid off in droves and is creatively rewarding. Once our website was ready to launch, we fumbled for a few weeks on Instagram before hiring a growth agency to help us kick off properly. There was a lot to learn because we were complete social media Luddites. We currently run our own social accounts and just hit a milestone number of 5000 followers, a minuscule following compared to well-known brands, but it’s been an interesting journey getting here. With Instagram, we’ve found a fan following, a community of small spooky businesses, it’s where we acquired our wholesale accounts, as well as having direct engagement and messaging with our customers. It’s really impactful for connecting on many levels and a great platform to show off our imagery. We also run multiple paid media campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. These social media ads and our IG account are the driving force behind our website traffic. Follow us @spookycatpress
Do you have any plans or hopes for a brick-and-mortar store at some point in the future?
We are in a few local shops in Orlando and want to eventually expand our wholesale business by attending the NYC Stationery show. The way retail and shopping habits are changing, we aren’t certain a stand-alone brick-and-mortar store would be a possibility.
Are you looking into expanding any product categories?
Absolutely! Much like our role models at Rifle Paper Co, a huge Orlando-based stationery company, we would love to license our artwork for different products. We hope someday we might garner this kind of interest if there is ever a company looking for some amazing spooky-themed or Halloween art.
Tell us about life before Spooky Cat Press. Do you guys both come from a design background?
All three of us come from design backgrounds. Terrence and Troy met at SCAD both majoring in Illustration. They’ve both been working in News Design and Illustration for years. Since news has vastly shifted to the web, it’s what has allowed them to do their jobs remotely for the last 6+ years. I studied Fashion Design at FIDM and ended up pursuing a career in Graphic Design, mostly in toy packaging and apparel/textile art, and started freelancing from home after having our twins in 2013. I truly feel all our experiences have led to and culminated in Spooky Cat Press. It is honestly very rewarding.
Anything else you want to add – anything you want people to know?
We’re grateful for this opportunity to be featured in Five Point’s spotlight! If there are other artists out there considering starting their own businesses, I just want to say that it’s possible. We’re living in a really connected time where bringing an idea to fruition is viable and obtainable…even for the little guy. Even for the little ghouls that just want to sell their spooky stuff 😉
Brooklyn Museum is celebrating the most iconic nightclub of all time, Studio 54, in all it’s disco glory. The show is fantastic. Invitations to private parties, candids of the rich and famous, scrapbooks of party plans and favors, snapshots of extravagant dancers and guests, sketches of costumes and fabulous disco dressing. Music blaring, strobe lights flashing, sequins glittering and space to dance your way through. What more can you ask for in these crazy times when the world is on fire and we’re all longing for human connection, creativity and self expression (much like those years ago when Studio 54 was born)? It left me longing for the good ol’ days when we could gather at 100% capacity and stand closer than 6 feet apart, and even more hopeful for a major resurgence of creativity, appreciation for life and DANCING when we make it out on the other side of all this!
Scroll through to see some of the show. And if you can make it to Brooklyn Museum, experience this in person. Tickets are timed and limited, so there is enough room to social distance and take it all in.
Our hearts go out to all of the small businesses and individuals who have been affected by the Coronavirus. We hope you all are staying safe and healthy. Like many of you, the restrictions have hit us hard. However, we are constantly adapting to the situation and trying to stay as positive as possible during these uncertain times. We are ALWAYS here to help you and your teams stay on track, even when you’re working from the kitchen table. If you have any CAD or custom art needs, we can help. For prints, we can set you up to shop our online collection 24/7. Please consider us part of your remote team.
Sending all the best to you, and as always thank you for supporting our small business.
Happy New Year! We’re back with our annual roundup of movies that we predict will influence kid’s graphics and prints here at Five Points Graphics. Here’s what we think will be big in 2020.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is indeed pretty marvelous, even if you’re only watching for the style inspiration. The critically acclaimed and award winning Amazon Prime series has a fantastic and way of portraying the life of a certain wealthy, well-dressed, Upper West Side comedian navigating her way through NYC in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The performances are excellent, the set designs are beautiful, and the wardrobe, the makeup, the hair – Everything is spot-on and so easy to get lost in. Recently the Paley Center for Media celebrated the show by hosting an exhibit dedicated to Season 2. The exhibit took us through some of the show’s sets and gave a close up look at props, wardrobe, storyboards and even clips from Season 2 episodes. It was like stepping into a fabulous time machine.
“Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style – – but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the “off,” of things-being-what-they-are-not.”
– Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp”, 1964
“Camp: Notes on Fashion” is the MET Costume Institute’s annual exhibit, which kicked off last month with the star studded MET Gala. The show highlights over 250 objects, artworks, accessories, outfits and more that examine the intentionally exaggerated, flamboyant, and extravagant spirit of camp. There are so many varying opinions on what it means to be campy and this exhibit is a perfect place to explore numerous style interpretations. The colorful fashion eye candy and swoon-worthy, over-the-top runway looks had us smiling, laughing and begging for more. Definitely recommend!
The Neon Museum was a major highlight on our recent trip to Vegas. This 2-acre campus is dedicated to collecting and preserving iconic Las Vegas neon signs. The collection boasts 800 vintage signs which have been donated or loaned from 200 local hotels, casinos, and small businesses. In the outdoor exhibit, The Boneyard, the signs are stacked and layered over the property, creating a maze that takes you through the history of Las Vegas. The signage is absolutely gorgeous and in beautifully worn condition. It was so fun to walk through The Boneyard, take in all the colors, and imagine the Las Vegas of the past. Click through our photos below and learn more about the museum here: https://www.neonmuseum.org/
Last month we visited The Museum at FIT to see the exhibition “Pink: The History of a Punk, Powerful, Pretty Color.” It walked us through 80 extraordinary pink ensembles by designers such as Christian Dior, Comme des Garçons, Elsa Schiaparelli and Givenchy, and examined the various meanings and impressions behind the polarizing color. Often associated with charm, sweetness, childhood and femininity, the exhibit explored how the color pink was used and viewed in different societies from early 18th century through the present, and how attitudes toward the color have continued to shift through the years. Scroll through our gallery below to view highlights from the show.
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