Gift Guide oversized throw
Photographs by Joel Benjamin
Ever True

Spark up your holidays with a little school spirit. Shop online (and often at a discount) from Brown alumni entrepreneurs with our twelfth annual gift guide.

By Kerry Lachmann and Louise Sloan '88 / November/December 2018
November 5th, 2018
recycled bracelets

FLIPPED FLOPS
These colorful bracelets (made from recycled flip flops) are fair trade and made in Mali by indigenous women earning living wages, but were not widely available in the U.S. until Chloe Thompson ’04 stepped in. She credits Brown with nurturing an entrepreneurial drive she now uses to run this small business right out of her apartment in Brooklyn. Set of 14 bracelets $35. Use code thayerstreet for a 30% discount.
www.doublehighfiveBK.com

batik throw and wine

THROWN TOGETHER
Nisha Mirani ’10 and Brendan Kramer ’10 met their freshman year, married in 2013 and opened their textile biz in 2017. This block-print throw, hand-stitched in Rajasthan using a traditional running-stitch technique, is lightweight and perfect for home or beach. Myna throw $150.
www.shopsundaymonday.com

GOOD GRAPES
“Serial entrepreneur” Randy Haykin ’85 funnels 100% of profits from Entrepreneur Wines, which he founded in 2008, to the Gratitude Network, a nonprofit that supports children around the world. Chardonnay $65/bottle, Cabernet $150/bottle. Use code BrownLovesWine for a 20% discount.
www.entrepreneurwines.com

“My husband and I both grew up in Massachusetts, spending summers as kids swimming in the ocean, playing on the beach, and exploring tide pools,” says Jennifer Seale Aitken ’96.5. At Brown, Aitken studied biology, learning invertebrate zoology “knee deep in the salt marshes” with professor Mark Bertness, and the complexities of animal behavior in seminars with professor Jonathan Waage. Now, her three sons make seaside discoveries: “Horseshoe crabs,” she says, “like armored samurai dragging slowly across the sand in Chatham; fiddler crabs racing to their tunnels in the mud of the salt marshes in Tiverton and Little Compton.”  Aitken and husband Seth Aitken use the children’s beach and salt-marsh finds as inspiration for fabrics that then become neckties, pocket squares, and aprons. “Our designs also pay homage to the working waterfronts that shaped the history of the area,” she says, “like the lobsters that provide the livelihood for many Maine families, and the legends of mermaids from a time when whale oil lamps illuminated the cobblestone streets of New Bedford.”

necktie

TIE ONE ON
The season goes sideways—in a good way—with organic cotton fiddler crabs in pink and purple. Necktie $52. Order by email—saltandkeep@gmail.com—and mention BAM for a 15% discount.
saltkeep.etsy.com

cameras

GET SMART
These tiny home cameras will livestream your kid or your dog straight to your smartphone—and let you have a conversation. They even have the ability to “hear” smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and send you a notification. The brainchild of Elana Fishman ’05 and a few of her colleagues at Amazon, Wyze Labs launched in 2017, but Elana says she’s dreamed of being part of a startup since taking Barrett  Hazeltine’s Engin. 9. To date, they have sold over one million. Wyze Cam $19.99; Wyze Cam Pan $29.99.
www.wyzecam.com

silk pjs and pet portraits

PAJAMA GAME
For a night of movies and popcorn, what’s better than comfy PJs? Christina Wang ’09 designed the perfect pair, adorned with hand-drawn images of Chinese takeout and gummy bears. The silk and viscose pajama set comes with matching eye mask. Netflix and Chill 2.0 pajama set $350. Use code EVERTRUE for a 10% discount.
www.shopcjw.com

PET PORTRAITS
Attorney Lauren Rogoff ’05 is the daughter of an art dealer and a veterinarian, so of course she paints watercolors of animals. When Hurricane Sandy destroyed her dad’s animal hospital, she painted dozens of pictures of cats and dogs to adorn the walls of the rebuilt hospital. And a business was born: orders for custom portraits came pouring in. Custom pet portraits start at $170. Use code WLBROWNALUM for a 5% discount.
www.wanderinglaur.com

overnight oatmeal

WILD OATS
What’s for breakfast? Liz Drewniak Watts ’04, ’05 ScM, ’11 PhD didn’t have time to figure it out, either, so she began concocting these nutritious “overnight oat” mixes to feed herself and her family, on the fly. The mixes come in five flavors—add milk, refrigerate overnight, and voilà. Ten single-serve pouches $22. Use code BrownAlum for a 10% discount.
www.overniteorganics.com

“Extreme Knitter” Clare Kearney ’12 sees her massive creations (the blanket pictured weighs over ten pounds) as “the perfect intersection” of her mathematical, technical brain and her creativity. Kearney studied chemical engineering as an undergrad and now works as a senior program manager at Microsoft. Early inspiration for her yarn art came from strolling down College Hill to check out the work of apparel majors at RISD. Kearney stumbled across extreme knitting on Instagram in 2016. Extreme knitters use traditional stitches, which Kearney had done since she was 9 years old. The “extreme” difference: they use yarn that’s two to three inches in circumference and knitting needles that can be as long as baseball bats.  Kearney was hooked, and in early 2017, she founded Woolly Element, LLC: the “element” a nod to the Periodic Table; the logo, a certain large gray animal with tusks. Her tag line: “Knitting on a mammoth scale.”

oversized throw

COZY CHIC
One hundred percent felted merino wool, ethically sourced from Nepal and New Zealand. Blanket $845. Use code BROWN10 for a 10% discount.
www.etsy.com/shop/woollyelement/

pearl earrings

ISLAND PEARLS
Mary MacGill ’10 designs jewelry inspired, in large part, by the shorelines of the Northeast. She has studios in both the Hudson Valley of New York and on Block Island. Tahitian Pearl earrings $525. Use code Brown for a 10% discount.
www.marymacgill.com

SF coffee spots towel

SWEET 16
When Zachary McCune ’10 moved to San Francisco several years ago he was not even a coffee drinker. He soon found himself frequenting the nearby cafes and enjoying the coffee so much he started doodling pictures of his favorite spots. These doodles now adorn his exclusive coffee towel. San Francisco Coffee Towel $25.
www.flnr.us

Backgammon set and dog collar

GAME ON
The ancient game of backgammon has never been so stylish…and portable! Michael Ciccia ’87 imports these hand-sewn suede beauties from Mexico; they roll up for easy storage. Travel backgammon set $120. Use code BROWN40 for a 40% discount.
www.cordani.com

CANINE CHIC
When Chris Chon ’08 left Brown and went looking for a job, he was astounded how much things like suits, watches, and dress shoes cost. His affordable fine-goods company, Leonard & Church, first focused on watches; because dogs rule, it recently added handmade leather dog collars and leashes. Red Dog Collar $65. Use code GoBruno for a 20% discount.
www.leonardandchurch.com

“Good luck with the olives!” It was 2006, and that was the parting shot from the olive farmer that Liz Barratt-Brown ’81 and her husband, Bos Dewey, had just fired. “We took that challenge to heart,” says Barratt-Brown, an environmental attorney. In 1997, she’d inherited Pedruxella Gran, an estate on the Spanish island of Mallorca that had produced olive oil for centuries, from her father. “Decades after graduating as an environmental studies major, I finally got my hands into the earth and picked our first crop of heirloom olives,” she remembers. “Over the years, we have perfected our harvest, laying the olives out on sheets at night in our barn and getting them to the press at the first light of dawn.”  Pedruxella is one of the last olive oil producers using olives from the gnarled “centenario” trees, many of them more than 500 years old. Maintaining the Moorish mountain terraces where they grow, and keeping invasive pine trees in check, has garnered them praise, even from their competitors. A longtime attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Barratt-Brown says  that for environmental activists like herself, “it’s hard to find a peaceful connection to the nature we are fighting to preserve. When I am collecting olives and making our oil, I feel I am but a small part of a beautiful continuum that will go on past my days on our mountainside.”

adopt an olive tree

HEIRLOOM OIL
“Adopt” one of the 500-year-old olive trees on this Spanish mountain estate and you’ll get two half-liter cans of the extra virgin, organic oil (twice the size of the can pictured here).
Biannual and quarterly adoptions are also available. The package includes a description of your tree and an invitation to visit the property (which offers three rental villas) at a 15% discount. Two 50 cl. cans of oil $50.
www.pedruxella.com

tie dye dress and tote

SINGULAR STYLE
The Night Rainbow design on this dress is tie-dyed by hand in India, making each one unique in pattern and design. Sheena Sood ’06 is a visual artist and clothing designer who has combined both passions with her ethically made and eco-friendly fashions. Kina Dress in Night Rainbow $175. Use code brown2018 for a 15% discount.
www.abacaxi-nyc.com

QUOTE TOTE
This tote bag is embellished with the whimsical drawings of Janine Kwoh ’09 and represents some of the things we “carry” every day—some good, some not-so-good, but all reminders to treat others with empathy. After all, you never know what anyone else is holding. Screen printed by hand on 100% recycled cotton. What We Carry tote bag $24.
www.kwohtations.com

“It’s too bad there are no cute, twirly dresses with robots on them,” thought Rebecca Melsky ’03 in the spring of 2013, while shopping for her then-2-year-old daughter. “Because she would totally wear one. Or a dress with a truck. Or a dragon. Or an airplane.” Instead, the girls’ section of the store was limited to butterflies, hearts, rainbows, and kittens, mostly in pinks and purples. Since girls’ clothing that “represented the full range” of her daughter’s interests didn’t exist, she decided to start a company to fill the gap: Princess Awesome, founded with friend and business partner Eva St. Clair. Their handmade dresses sold out, and in 2015 they ran a Kickstarter to bring them into factory production. Five years later, the company offers shirts, skirts, leggings, shorts, and, of course, twirly dresses—with pockets. Feedback from parents has been very positive. “When my daughter wears her rocket dress,” one customer told her, “adults communicate with her differently. Instead of calling her a princess or cute, the conversation expands to rockets. With her molecular orbit dress, she tells them that C represents carbon, and she’s made out of carbon and it forms bonds. Sure, she doesn’t have the best grasp of any of this, but she’s three and learning. And adults treat her like more than a cute little thing, which in turn strengthens her  confidence.”

construction print dress

PINK SHMINK
Future general contractors will appreciate the deep, functional side pockets of this STEM-inspired dress. Groundbreaker Super Twirler dress $39.95. Use code BROWN20 for a 20% discount.
www.princess-awesome.com

board game and scrubs

GREAT ESCAPE
Juliana Moreno Patel ’03 was planning a game night and wanted a home escape-room experience. When she found none existed, she designed her own, taking all the things she loved about escape rooms and cramming them into a box. Players solve puzzles and crack codes to thwart a mad scientist’s plot. Escape Room in a Box: The Werewolf Experiment $29.99. www.wildoptimists.com

CHIC SCRUBS
Olga Lemberg ’08 MD spent years in scrubs as a hospital-based pediatrician and found it frustrating there weren’t more stylish options. In 2015 she founded Fabled, a line of modern scrubs for women that come in four styles and three colors. The Maverick Top $72; The Maverick Pant $94. Use code BROWN10 for 10% off.
www.thisisfabled.com

wooden boxes and digital ball

KEEPSAKE BOX
Cody Campanie ’08 opened his furniture studio last year. His work studies the rituals of life in the home; each piece is made from solid wood using traditional joinery. These 2-drawer treasure boxes are available in walnut, beech, maple, elm, fir, or ash. Drawer box starts at $750.
www.campagna.cc

BRAINY BALL
This active game system developed by Brian Monnin ’93 connects an inflatable ball with a small “brain” inside to an app on your iPhone or Apple TV. The system tracks variables like speed and spin, tallies personal scores, and offers movement-based games from classics like Keep Away to the platform’s unique games and challenges. Designed for a single user or groups. Play Impossible Gameball $99.95.
www.playimpossible.com

peacoat

FINE WOOL
Jennifer Knight ’89 bought a shuttered textile mill, hired back 75% of its workers, and teamed up with a partner to re-open American Woolen Company, a brand that dates to 1899. This peacoat features bovine horn buttons and merino wool hand-warmers. The Webster Peacoat $795. Use code BROWN25 for a 25% discount.
www.americanwoolen.com

“I was a picky kid,” says Grant LeBeau ’09. It was the late seventies and early eighties, “back before Whole Foods was ubiquitous. My dad was a vegan aspiring professional triathlete. Healthy, on-the-go snacks had to be made at home.” LeBeau’s dad, Rick, didn’t do the best job tempting his son’s palate at first. But over the next few decades, “my dad honed his baking skills.” Then in the early 2000s, Rick became close with a woman who had multiple sclerosis and had been advised to remove gluten from her diet. So Rick substituted coconut for flour, Grant says, “and Rickaroons were born.” Fast forward to 2013, and Grant was working for a startup but ready to move on. “I saw how much positive feedback the home-baked, Ziploc bags of Rickaroons were generating,” he says. So he built a website and started selling a version of his dad’s creations at his local farmers market in San Diego. For a few years, it was a side gig, but now Rickaroons can be found nationally and the company employs two of Grant’s younger sisters. “I was more of a taste tester than an active participant in the formulation,” Grant admits. But his Brown experience helped him see the treat’s commercial potential: “I was inspired by Danny Warshay’s class to turn my dad’s recipes from a passion into a business. I still go back to Danny for advice, although I try to save my requests for important things because there are probably a few hundred other Warshay acolytes who want his input!”

coconut snack cakes

FAB FUEL
A twist on the classic macaroon, Rickaroons—“coconut energy bars that taste like dessert”—come in five flavors including peanut butter protein and dark chocolate espresso. 12-bar Variety Pack $26. Use code BROWN for a 15% discount.
www.rickaroons.com

skis and black pique dress

POWDER PLAY
Warren Kanders ’79 loves outdoor sports, so when the company Black Diamond Equipment went up for sale in 2010, he jumped. On a quest for lightweight skis for backcountry explorers that wouldn’t compromise downhill performance, he created the Helio 105, made of a kind of high-tech carbon fiber typically used only in the aerospace industry. Helio 105 Skis $879.95. Use code BROWNALUM2018 for 30% off.
www.blackdiamondequipment.com

FASHION FIX
This flattering, machine washable, wrinkle-free dress is part of a 3-piece collection by Sarah Carson ’02 and her women’s clothing label Leota. The set is designed to take you from work to play without having to change your outfit, and makes travel packing a breeze. The Work Work Work Kit $358. Use code sticktogether for a 20% discount.
www.leota.com

What do you think?
See what other readers are saying about this article and add your voice. 
Related Issue
print cover of the November/December 2018 BAM
November/December 2018
Topics
Related Classes