Taos: Leathered Up
This is Rose’s new collar. Isn’t it pretty?
Rose was due for a new collar, and it seemed fitting that she have something a bit more cowdog, to go with her new hiking-in-the-mountains/Santa Fe lifestyle.
It’s a good thing I found myself in Taos a few weeks back with my friend Catherine, and as always, I insisted we stop at World Cup Taos for a triple latte before the drive back to Santa Fe. While sitting outside on one of the blue benches, drinking our very strong coffees, we both noticed a rack of t-shirts in front of the little bodega a couple of stores down. So we grabbed our coffees and Rosedog and started thumbing through the racks.
Three shirts later, while standing inside at the counter to pay, we both noticed these great leather bracelets and cuffs for sale. She and I both got one and we started talking to Noel, who was ringing us up, and who, as it turned out, was the artist who’d made them.
I don’t remember who suggested the collar for Rose first, but I thought it was a great idea and I couldn’t imagine a better color than a dusty rose, Rose being so girly and all.
Noel hand-delivered the collar to me in Santa Fe a couple of days ago and brought a whole bunch more leather bracelets, too.
What’s interesting is not that they’re hand stamped, but how they’re stamped — if you look closely, you’ll see that some have a leafy-looking pattern while others have tiny squares or soft arches or delicate swirls. The colors, too, are unusual and subtle, looking almost vegetable dyed — I bought a faded khaki green one and another in a blue that’s somewhere between denim and inky.
The more slender ones look wonderful in twos and threes, mixed with other bracelets, and the bigger cuffs — reminiscent of the 70s– are striking on their own. What’s so great about these is they fit — my wrists are pretty small so most bracelets are far too large–it’s nice to feel these against my skin.
Noel ships her handmade bracelets and cuffs within the U.S. and is happy to take special orders for people and their animals. Don’t bother searching online; she doesn’t have a website. She’ll dye and stamp bracelets, cuffs and collars however you like — for your size and color preferences. She and I talked at length about the particular color of pink that I wanted, and I was going to have Rose’s name stamped on the collar, but in the end, decided to go with the simple, elegant stamped design.
If you’d like to place an order — Christmas is just around the corner, people– give her a call. 575/758-8573.
