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The Tip is 'Keep eyes open' After reading an article about items made in America I thought about how many times I make purchases without thinking. I'm usually focused on budget and needs. Prior to reading this article on made in the USA products, I rarely thought about the importance of buying made in USA products. This helps create jobs in our country. Now I keep my eyes open and I am surprised how easy it is to find American products. It only takes a few seconds to look. Now I make a point when I am shopping to search for made in America brands. By doing so, I'm able to identify more and more what products are made in America. Even with my eyes open to made in USA I can get discouraged. Sometimes store clerks don't know the country of origin which can be frustrating. If this happens use your eyes to find the origin information yourself. Look at the labels and when you find a Made in USA product tell the clerk so the next time they are asked they will know. Also, when the label is not easily seen I use the other made in America buying tips to help me find made in USA. If the store doesn't carry what you are looking for, use Made in America Secrets to find it and tell the manager about your experience at their store. When enough people are asking for made in the USA products, more stores will begin to carry products that are made here. This technique does work. I also pick and choose the stores I visit. I do this because I have found that some stores are made in America friendly while others are not. Keep your eyes open for the made in USA label and pretty soon you will be able to identify which products are made in the USA. Buying Tip Continued - Read more on Made in America Products by Andreas Beau Andrea has her family to thank for her love of design. Her grandfather (a dress manufacturer), her grandmother (a department store millinery buyer), her father (owner of women's boutiques), and her mother (a former fashion model and noted artist), exposed her to the shoptalk of aesthetics, color and textile trends, fashion houses, and factories. Fairytale princesses in fanciful gossamer gowns, crowns and satin slippers inspired Andrea's first designs. Her mother further encouraged her to appreciate beauty in simple, everyday objects like a vase of daisies, a ballerina's costume, a birthday cake. Later, during her own extensive world travels, she observed marvelous hair decorations on women and girls which, she believes, reflects the universal feminine pleasure in making oneself pretty. Before the brand was conceived, these early influences helped create Andrea's own design aesthetic: adornments, be they garments or hair accessories, should complement but never overshadow one's innate beauty. One day, Andrea walked into a dusty old shop in New York's Garment District. She spotted a rumpled but exquisite roll of French floral ribbon on a shelf. As a new mother to a beautiful, if not virtually bald baby girl, she knew just what to do. She made her first bow out of that ribbon, and as if it were destiny, Andrea's Beau was born. What began as a lark quickly transformed into an all-out hair accessory obsession. Within months, Andrea had designed a girls' collection of handmade casual and special occasion headbands, hair clips, flower girl baskets, ring bearer pillows, dressy gloves, tiaras, and First Communion veils created from refreshingly un-repetitive trims, ribbons and silk flowers unseen in the children's market. Soon after, her women's collection of casual and formal headbands and hairclips materialized as well, which she carted, stored in a hatbox, to buying offices along the east coast. Often without appointments, she learned simply to open the box and let the products sell themselves. Rapidly, they did just that. Over the years, her designs have appeared in Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie as well as hundreds of small boutiques and online catalogs around the world. Marc-and-Andrea-sitting-in-a-tree.jpg From her Washington, DC studio, with the help of a wonderful staff and inspiration from Marc, Andrea's original beau, she continues to create subtle, elegant and exceptionally well-made hair accessories to delight women and girls, and those who behold them. |
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