For Mary Meyer, it was always about the art. “Since I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an artist,” she says. “So getting into art school, I really got obsessed with just learning as much as I could. The print shop was really appealing to me. I loved all of the machines and their historical presence.” After graduating from California College of the Arts, Mary painted 30-some hours a week, taught, waitressed, and started making her own clothes. “I was always broke, and I was always very into looking cool. I was never into fashion and wasn’t aware of designers—I didn’t know anything about anything—but I had a specific aesthetic sensibility,” she explains. When she sold her first piece—a single-seam tube top that a girl she worked with bought off her for $20—she had a sort of epiphany: “I was used to art. Art you have to sell for a certain amount of money, and only certain people buy it. People who are 22 don’t buy art. They buy clothes.” As she grew into her design career—she did her first trade show in 2004—she got better at fusing the painting and printmaking she loved with the lines she was creating. She also began to discover important differences between being a career artist and a career designer. “As soon as you’ve done something successfully in fine art, you’re taught or driven to change. It’s like with exercise—you have to keep switching it up, or you plateau. But with fashion, you really have to have a thread that you’re pulling people along with,” Mary reflects. Just as she was once fully committed to her artwork, she’s now dedicated solely to her design. “People used to say to me, ‘Are you still painting on the side?’” she says. “I’m designing clothing and running a business. I don’t do anything on the side.” Come back tomorrow to score Mary’s second edition for Of a Kind. And get on our mailing list for a reminder.

Sara (left) and Mary, getting pose-y. One of the coolest things about year one of Of a Kind: discovering just how interconnected some of our favorite designers are. Mary Meyer and Sara Gates each have their own lines—Mary making streamlined, edgy apparel, and Sara creating custom-dyed, attention-grabbing totes under the name Cook & Gates—but they are both integral to each other’s work. Mary sells Sara’s bags at her awesome store in Bushwick (more on that tomorrow); Sara does all of the screen-printing on Mary’s creations. Here, Mary breaks down their relationship and why it works so damn well. “Sara and I met coincidentally through the person who does this beauty-product line, Goldie’s, that I sell at the store. At the time, I was driving back and forth from Philly, having something screen-printed by an old friend of mine there for my spring 2008 line. That was the first time I did a collection with the type of prints that have become my hallmark. My friend Sarah T. told me that her best friend Sara G. had a print shop in Brooklyn.” Goldie’s! By Sarah T. “Sara ended up doing the production for the samples that season, and we have been working together ever since. It’s just been an amazing relationship. What I love about working with Sara is you can get her to do a T-shirt, sure, but where she’s really inspired is figuring out how to do something challenging. She’s more inclined to do a job that’s crazy and interesting where she has to build something to make it work. To print my leggings, she made a leg form, and she does these glass jars for Goldie’s that require a wooden frame to print.” Cook & Gates bags in Mary’s store, by Sara G. “I think it is also exciting to work together because we’re both self-taught. I mean, Sara went to art school, too, but we’re both these businesswomen who didn’t study business. And I think we have this similarity in that our businesses grew organically. She’s one of the only people in New York who does hand yardage printing, and she’ll get these really big exciting clients because of that.” Kick off your Black Friday shopping with Mary Meyer’s edition! Get on our email for a reminder tomorrow AM.

On top of her impressive design skills, Mary Meyer has a nose for cool. She has a wicked ability to sniff out the next buzzy band and source jewelry that no one else is wearing (yet). And, since August, she has brought her discovery talents to her namesake shop at 56 Bogart Street, in what might be considered downtown Bushwick, Brooklyn. In addition to her own graphic, pared-down pieces, she carries—well, we’ll let her show you herself. Click here to score Mary’s rad screen-printed scarf that you can only get right here. Just 33 in the whole wide world! A sampling of some of Mary’s killer jewelry finds. “This is the building that I wanted to be in. If you’re in a neighborhood that is up-and-coming like this, if you’re not at the center of it—there’s no way we could be doing what we’re doing. I called about the building and looked at a space a couple floors up, and I asked the guy who showed it to me, ‘So, what’s going on with the ground floor?’ Turns out it was being built-out, and none of it had been rented.” Striking Lila Rice earrings. “I didn’t realize I was going to enjoy being a buyer so much. Going to the trade shows and carrying designs from people that I have personal relationships with is exciting, and I like that I’m representing a community.” The popular nut rings. “I’m pairing the higher-end lines with good designs that make up our little grab-and-go section. It’s mostly just about looking for cool products that work with what we’re doing—great $15 sunglasses and pocketknives made in the Southwest. I found these rings made out of nuts from Peru at a trade show. I thought I was crazy when I bought them, but they’ve done well.” Another tempting score: cozy and well-priced bajas. “For spring, one of the things that I’m most excited about is carrying Betsey Johnson. I felt a little star-stuck when I placed the order—she’s the first designer I ever owned. I decided not to get the typical Betsey Johnson baby-doll dress and to stick with a group that felt right in the store—things you might not even know were Betsey Johnson if you saw them on the rack.”