Don Julio Tequila is paying homage to craftsmanship with a series of Devotion Diaries. We chat with makers who show that commitment to creativity will never go out of style. This story is sponsored by Don Julio Tequila.
Sofia Elias started experimenting with globular forms for a thesis project in architecture school. She was designing a playground and wanted the structures to mimic the playfulness of childhood so she used brightly colored Play Doh to create a series of amorphous shapes. What began as an assignment for school soon morphed into a small collection of handmade jewelry.
“I was pigmenting and I was using kitchen utensils and it was very weird, but it was very fun,” she says of those early experiments. She started wearing her early creations. Soon, her friends took notice and started requesting jewelry of their own. Thus Blobb was born.
In the two years since, Blobb has transformed from playful pastime to a full-fledged brand whose signature creations appear on the hands of Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid alike. There’s a lackadaisical attitude that Elias has baked into the very ethos of the brand. Each Blobb creation is unique (Elias doesn’t use molds) and bears the unmistakable quality of being hand-made. The rings are made of resin in a collection of vibrant hues and garnished with gems. They’re goopy and messy and imperfect. Simply put, they’re blobs.
Elias found early success when Opening Ceremony asked to stock her rings for their year-long celebration of Mexican fashion. Blobb was a fledgling venture and the store’s demand greatly exceeded any output Elias had made up to that point. “‘Can you have 80 rings in two weeks?’ I'm like, ‘I don't know if I can, it takes so long to dry,’” she remembers. “80 for me was such a big number.”
The exposure afforded by one of New York City’s incubators for the up-and-coming led to connections with a variety of international retailers—like Selfridges, Café Forgot, and Domicile—and greater visibility for Blobb. As demand grew, Elias recalls the demands that came with running a business alone: “People might have thought that Blobb is a company, but at the end of the day, it was just me.”
It's this steely devotion to her designs and steadfast work ethic that drew Don Julio Tequila to Elias in the first place. As a tequila brand bolstered by the dedication to craftsmanship instilled by its founder Don Julio Gonzalez, it found in Elias and Blobb a kindred spirit. Her singular vision made her a perfect fit for the series of Devotion Diaries.
To stay ahead of the curve as an independent creative and business owner, Elias collages her studio with post-it notes and reminders. She’s recently brought on two other people to help with the production of rings, while she works to develop the Blobb universe. “I want to expand at the moment in different directions and to see which direction will work best and then just go on from that one. I want to try out drawings, sculpture, objects, home objects, and then see what I'm liking the most.”
First up, are some sculptural pieces: chairs and vases made in the signature Blobb style. The goal is to outfit an entire Blobb world, one that exists well beyond the fingers. Elias has also begun to incorporate recycled plastics into the Blobb repertoire, as she seeks to make the endeavor as environmentally friendly as possible.
In a way, the move towards larger sculptures feels only natural for the brand as each ring is in-and-of-itself a unique art piece. As Blobb grows even bigger and blobbier, the sense of wonder and imagination that fuelled her early experiments is felt in all new endeavors. Though she may have graduated from working out of her kitchen, Blobb retains the purity of vision that attracted admirers to begin with. Even looking back on two years of exponential growth, Elias is quick to admit surprise: “It went to a place where I never imagined.”
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