Plain Goods x V Smiley Preserves
An ode to New England, plain spokenness and the traditions we keep.
Home is New England. It's where towering Black Locust thickets meet the gable end of a Cape Cod style house. Home is clapboards, often painted white surrounding a hearth at the center of the house. Eight years in business, and 6 years living in my childhood, Vermont home (pictured above) transformed my relationship and confidence with tradition.
I met Michael DePerno (and soon after, his partner Andrew Fry) through Instagram in 2018. I received a very warm and relatively (for Instagram) formal note from Michael saying that they were expanding their pantry offerings at their CT store and that he'd like to chat.
I responded as I normally do, speeding into the process with email and an attached "Sell Sheet". Michael noted he's "old fashioned" and suggested a phone call to start. This level of care going into a wholesale connection is special and I decided this wasn't a phone call to take while standing on the noisy street outside my kitchen.
As it turned out, Michael and I share this West Coast - New England split rootedness and the cues that go with those settings. East Coast formality, West Coast dreaming. The hover of garden and home. And we share queerness plus a love for fashion and the way that industry thinks of each season as a god damn EVEEENNT.
Last spring, as I hacked and pressed into becoming an e-commerce brand to weather Covid, I cooked a collection of Jam Americana to see if it bumped sales. It did! We're talking classic, familiar combos. You grew up with these flavors.
For years I actively avoided making Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. I worried that if I made something so deeply familiar too early on in VSP's life that the flavor would "take over", crowding out the joyous, creative process of finding other wonderful "strawberry jams" to share with you.
HOMECOMING
Michael and Andrew purchased 8 jars of the Jam Americana series when it went live on the website. I was so thankful for the support.
They already carried V Smiley Preserves in their shop and were in the midst of re-opening Plain Goods in a stunning refurbished Connecticut location (you guessed it, white clapboards, a cupola, a large stone stoop just like where I grew up in New Haven Mills).
I began to feel this reverb and get an idea.
I am so pleased to present "V Smiley Cooks the Classics for Plain Goods".
Eight years in business, and 6 years living in my childhood home, transformed my relationship and confidence with tradition. In other words, cooking Strawberry Rhubarb Jam sounds pretty fun now.
When I imagined the perfect outfit for Black + Blue Jam, the V Smiley Preserves label didn't fit. This line of classics finds its perfect home with Michael & Andrew at Plain Goods.
Plain Goods celebrates impeccable craftsmanship, purity of form, and nature’s ever-changing palette. They value exquisite materials and the skilled hands of the artisans who create them.
Last week, Lauren Mazzotta and I gathered down in New Haven Mills to start shooting photographs in anticipation of this late August product launch. I'd decided that the visual heart of this collaboration with Plain Goods, the reason it felt good, was that we were two brands that "came home" to New England. As I assembled the shot list in my notebook I began to get really excited. This was a chance to invite everyone over (to where I grew up).
You cannot run around a tiny former New England village with just anyone. Lauren handed me her car keys and we started our slow photo crawl.
Over the last year, Lauren Mazzotta has become the visual rock for V Smiley Preserves. I cannot emphasize enough how precious these professional relationships are. Lauren is patient, steady, resourceful, "up for it", does her research, is amazing at composition, kind and just really freaking talented.
These two images got me crossing fingers + toes that Lauren would start working with VSP. A courtship of oddity, space, color, and sculpture oozed from her work. I'd been dreaming about meeting a photographer with whom I could really build a body of work.
Ever since studying art in college, I've held a complicated relationship with photography and its "take, take and flatten" powers. As V Smiley Preserves grows, I want my soul to stay in the output, from the jams to the imagery to the writing. This is only possible through collaboration and trusting other people and growing with them.
There is generosity and danger inherent to collaboration. We are trusting ourselves, our brands/reputation/vision into the chords of another voice. To me, the magic happens when we find this harmony of vulnerability and professionalism.
Building that with longtime partners like Lauren and starting that with Plain Goods is what makes work so exciting and gratifying.