Hot Hiver: Tricia Royal, Bits and Bobbins

About Tricia:

Tricia Royal is a local San Francisco artist, designer, blogger, and visionary. She creates whimsical wearables by blending leather, fabric, and yarn. Tricia studied art history at the University of Florida, where she graduated in 2003, and then went on to intern with I.C.R. vs. Dethkillers in 2004. She recently graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York where she studied fashion design.

These days, Tricia has a billion things on her plate that display her many talents. For one, she is the founder of Wardrobe Remix, an online street fashion community where stylish members showcase their do-it-yourself outfits for the world to see. Tricia is also a budding fashion designer, who revamps vintage and thrift pieces to make them more wearable. Incorporating bright colors, handcrafted design, and street influences into her pieces, Tricia is sewing, crocheting, and knitting her way to fashion fame. Bits and Bobbins is her increasingly popular blog, and she has been featured in Adorn magazine and Women€™s Wear Daily. One of our most popular Hivers, Tricia has also been contributing captivating editorial content for the Stylehive.

Stylehive: How would you best describe your style?

Tricia Royal: Vintage modern/color magpie. One who takes calculated risks. Girlish. Geometric. I like to mix new and vintage clothing, and play with color theory as well as texture to make what I consider to be an interesting ensemble. I lean heavily toward saturated colors, especially red, orange and green, in my wardrobe, but I actually love ALL colors of the rainbow. A lot of my clothes and favored silhouettes come from the 1970s and 1980s. I love stiff fabrics and silhouettes.

SH: What do you think has influenced your style the most?

TR: Having a limited budget, especially when I was a teenager/younger woman. Because I didn't have a lot of money, I had to be creative, which lead to lots of thrift shopping and sewing my own clothing. I can afford more now as an adult, but to add sass into my closet, I still make my own outfits and shop for vintage pieces.

My father has fabulous taste in clothing, and so did my paternal grandmother; they both influenced my love for fashion, for high quality, well-designed pieces. My mom's sister Diane and my grandmother on my mother's side were very crafty, so I got my itch to create my own things from all of them, I believe. Style is a family affair!

Education also plays a part (I have a degree in art and another in fashion design), and I'm just a curious person. Everything fascinates me...there are so many inspiring things around in the world, and literally, everything from science to art to culture plays into and influences my style and what I'm obsessed with at a given moment.

SH: Who are your favorite style icons?

TR: Iris Barrel Apfel is a HUGE icon for me.

Cristobal Balenciaga, the original baleniaga, made sculptural designs that are timelessly amazing. He's a huge influence for me...a style icon for me for sure, in the sense of design.

In general, I am more impressed by well-dressed everyday creative people on the street, who can put their clothes together in an interesting manner. Those people are my style icons.

SH: Moving from New York to San Francisco is a big change. What are your thoughts about New York style vs. San Francisco style?

TR: San Francisco style: Casual, semi-urban, laid-back, outdoorsy, chic, uniforms/tribes.

New York City style: Extremely experimental, artistic, international, designer, rock and roll.

SH: How long have you been blogging, and what got you started?

TR: I have been blogging since about 2001. I started out with more of a personal blog, but it eventually turned into a place where I could keep track of and share fashion-related obsessions and thoughts, as well as objects and clothing I like to make, which is what my blog, bitsandbobbins.com has become today. My blog has a sort of anti-fashion, define your OWN style, make it yourself type of bent to it, rather than just products all the time. Style is about more than just clothing...so my blog is about more than just fashion.

SH: Describe what you've done with Wardrobe Remix.

TR: Wardrobe Remix is a do-it-yourself street fashion community. It started in my blog in September of 2005 as a way for me to document and share what I was wearing. Very soon after it's inception, however, it moved to Flickr, a photo sharing community, and it has grown virally to a community of around 2800 today, with girls and guys from six continents showing off their amazing daily ensembles.

This year, I am planning to launch a stand-alone website home for Wardrobe Remix outside of Flickr, where users can share their photos, talk about fashion as well as trends, culture, and more.

SH: On your blog you sell handcrafted jewelry and accessories. Do you plan on doing apparel in the future?

TR: Definitely! I am developing a line of clothing as we speak. Stay tuned!

Tricia's Stylehive picks: bitsandbobbins