Tuesday Highlights: eel & ermine

We are so excited to feature eel & ermine to our readers today. Evelyne and Elinor are the designers and seamstresses behind the brand! They make everything themselves in their workshop and storefront in San Francisco. We stumbled upon eel & ermine a few months back and one of our brides is working with them on custom bridesmaid dresses. Evelyne and Elinor design stylish and flattering bridesmaid dresses and you should really stop in and take a look!

We are super in love with everything they do and they are even going to be designing our outfits we will be wearing to our weddings this year! When you are in the shop they even offer you some yummy treats as they feel shopping is always better with treats! They even have treats for your favorite canine! So now without further aideu we did a little Q & A with Evelyne and Elinor......

ASE: How did you get started?

Evelyne & Elinor: Etsy. We wanted to try our hand out at selling our designs and Etsy provided the perfect platform for that. Low risk and user friendly. After about a month we realized that it was also a much more drawn out process and fairly difficult to make custom clothes via the internet with the type of customer service we wanted to provide so we began looking for a physical location. In February of 2010, Evelyne spotted a listing and suggested we check it out... after a blitz of painting, ad-lib furniture building, and of course sewing, we were up and running by the end of April! (there was also a bit of paperwork involved)

ASE: What do you love most about designing clothes?
 

Evelyne & Elinor: Sweet Freedom!...From status-quo and trendy fashions

ASE: Why do brides love Eel & Ermine?

Evelyne & Elinor: At the risk of sounding cheesy talking about our likable qualities, I've included some of our customers reviews:

"Elinor and Evelyne (the low-key, gorgeous owners) are what turned my wedding planning from a nightmare into a fun expression of my personality. We've designed the dresses together with my bridesmaids, and they have been an island of calm in a very hectic month of planning--I keep finding excuses to go back to their shop again and again. 

Eel & Ermine is a manifestation of its owners' creativity--the quirky interior and "noveau-vintage" designs of their clothing is a reflection of how cool these girls are...plus they bake homemade treats and have coffee service for during your dress fittings."
When it really boils down though, I think we're liked for one very simple reason. We're nice. We're so lucky to do what we love and be our own bosses that it would be pretty hard not to be nice!...it could also be the complementary treats and baked goods...

 

ASE: What are a few of your favorite things that you cannot live without?

At home

Two words: Electric blanket. I use it everynight and I love it.

I'm not 100% sure what Evelyne would say so I'll throw a few things out there:
a staple gun
a blanket
a comfy reading chair

In the shop 

We both really love sharp scissors, new fabrics, and diet sunkist soda :)

ASE: If you have a day off what are you doing?

Evelyne and I often use our off days to go fabric shopping together.

For solo time:

Evelyne would probably be out of the city and on a hike with her husband, Adam, and dog, Kolya. She's great about using her off days for active outings.

I could be found trying to get my husband, Andrew, 8-month old son, Tycho, and dog, Berry, ready to leave the house... Some days we don't make it very far (Dolores Park), but when we do the SF Zoo and California Academy of Sciences are two favorites. I guess those aren't very far either.

Thank you Evelyne & Elinor for stopping by to spend some time with us and our readers! We look forward to blogging about the design process of our outfits and working with you on many fun wedding projects!!

eel & ermine is located at: 
514 Presido Avenue
San Francisco, Ca. 94115
www.eelandermine.com 

Photographs by Edyta Szyszlo

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