well we are at a farmer’s market, so we started selling wash-cloths. Then Brittany started sewing and crocheting other things – so that’s kind of how it ballooned.
Brittany: So, as we started to build our brand around our bees, their influence has seeped into a lot of what we do. We source all our essential oils from Wildflowers Tea in St. Thomas (Check out their interview with us on page 8 of this issue), and we source the coffee for our scrubs from O-Joe – I love to support other vendors who are donating back into the community!
Nick’s cousin works with an organisation in Nicaragua called Juntos Contigo, they help to support the communities and provide education to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to it. Through that Z & Bee have also started to support local vendors from Nicaragua, by bringing up fabric from them, while remaining conscious to minimize their ecological footprint.
Casa London: Would you say you have an over-arching theme to your product line?
Nick: At the moment it is more seeing what we can do, but everything tags back to being eco-friendly and it all relates to the bees!
Brittany: It is interesting too, because with the bees you spend so much more time paying attention to the ecosystems in general. Nick grew up farming, his Grandpa owned an orchard in St. Thomas, so this is something that has always been very near and dear to him. In our garden we don’t spray pesticides, we are starting to figure out how to preserve seeds so we don’t have to keep buying seeds from the store, things like that. We are just lucky because the response from our community has been so great; part of it has been timing, and part of it has been luck.
Casa London: I believe you like to work with old materials when you are making your bags?
Brittany: It’s kind of cool actually, people will give me leather jackets that they have used, or I’ll go to second hand shops and
60