Mid-October Riina O was invited to the weird and wonderful Beirut to teach the 3-day glove-making workshop at the Lebanese American University.

Beirut is an extraordinary place where gloves are mostly worn for fashion, not for function, unlike in most of Europe and the US these days. And whilst allegedly it does get chilly there in Winter, at the time of the visit it was 34c at night! Much cooler indoors though.

The lovely group of third year fashion students learned various stitching techniques working with the thin gloving leather, the students were guided through the adjustments of the standard size glove patterns to create an exact fit and instructed how to make the first sample glove, which some people managed to finish by the end of the 3-day workshop.

The workshop fell on the busy week of mid-term deadlines, so the dedication, patience and time put into it from the students was worth appreciating!

The weather was definitely favouring short and airy fashion gloves.

The bea...

Have you ever imagined changing the colour of your gloves? 

Riina O teamed up with the smart textile designer Kristi Kuusk to create two pairs of experimental colour changing Astra gloves.

The gloves are decorated with a screen-printed pattern using heat-sensitive pigments that react to the temperature change - in this case the heat of your hands - turning the stars from dark grey to light blue. 

The futuristic element is highlighted by selecting stars as a hint to the space age and technological advancements. Thermochromic inks printed on leather explore the possibilities of the future, accessible already now.

 There is also a more mysteriously shadow blue pair.

See the magic for yourself from the video:

The third week of September is celebrated in Estonia as Disainiöö - Tallinn Design Festival. Translated as Design Night - the week-long event was happening already 14th year in the row, from 16th to 22nd of September 2019. The main venue being the grand Noblessner Shipyard, but having satellites all over the city.

The Festival called "Future Materials" concentrated on the sustainable topic and aimed to introduce the material innovations used in various products to the wider public. The choice of the topic was also helped by the fact that all plastic utensils, bags, and several other plastic items will soon be banned. There is an urgent need to respond by finding alternative natural materials, and this is an area where designers are increasingly collaborating with researchers.

Riina O was invited to partake in Disainiöö Tallinn Design Festival. This time not even so much as a glove brand, but as a material researcher. The eponymous main exhibition "Future Materials" di...

First weekend of September Riina O was in Wales, Pembrokeshire, teaching the glove-making workshop at GDH Leather Courses.

Situated in an old chapel building in the middle of Welsh green hills, the 3-day masterclass was an intense introduction to hand-making leather gloves, covering the rich history of these accessories, teaching different stitches used on thin gloving leather and following through each step of making the students´ first leather glove, which was finished just on time.

Beautifully ever-green Wales got discovered from different corners on the way there and back.

  Cardiff Castle surely did not fail to impress.

Our curiosity for new materials is never ending. It has lead our brand´s creative director to explore the Material Futures at CSM and beyond. Since early 2019 Riina has been the material research resident at the Green Lab in London.  With the great excitement it´s time to reveal what we have been working on this year!

Kombucha is a fermented tea drink that grows layers of bacterial cellulose on its surface to create a barrier with oxygen. This symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast is shortly called SCOBY.

Riina has been working with the SCOBY developing it into a leather-like material. The SCOBYs have been provided by our sponsor Momo Kombucha as the waste of the drink production industry and reworked into a new material with a great potential.

The most successful results have been achieved creating the SCOBY composite material enhancing the material properties with different additives.

The main motivator for the material research has been the current shortage of leather alternatives...

Such a thrill to be teaching the glove-making workshop at Central Saint Martins - the best fashion university of the world - as part of their Short Courses programme!

The 5-day masterclass covers all steps of glove-making from the history to hand-stitching, pattern adjustment, sample making and glove design.

As it was the first time to run this course at CSM Short Courses, Riina got interviewed to explain more in detail what the class covers and you will soon be able to learn more about the course structure from their website and youtube channel. Stay tuned!

It was a lovely group of students not only local from the UK - some came all the way from  San Francisco and Montreal in Canada o take this glove-making workshop! Apparently, there are not many courses of this kind taught.

Don´t worry if you missed out on this one - next workshop of the same kind coming up on Saturdays throughout February!  Book your place now!

This year at London Craft Week Riina O was introducing the skills of making a simple archery-inspired fashion glove at our new London masterclass location - Carréducker Shool of Making. Very pleased to have joint such a skillful house on the long term basis, this was an opportunity for our first two classes.

The 4-hour workshops were both a great success, serving as a nice introduction to hand stitching soft gloving leather and creating a bold 2-finger glove.

For those who missed this occasion but would still love to dab their finger in the craft of glove making, there is another introductory archery-inspired glove making workshop at Carréducker coming up on the 22nd June 2019, with longer intensive courses to follow later in the year.

For more classes have a look at our workshops page!
 

Last month Riina O was invited to teach at Accademia Koefia in Rome, Italy the soon-to-be graduates of the Fashion Design course.

The week-long intense workshop comprised of glove pattern adjustment, learning to make gloves through trial (and occasional error) and designing as well as making the pair of hand-stitched leather gloves of one´s choice. The most diligent students even managed to finish the pair by the end of the workshop! Some pretty colourful gloves were made, which might be included in the students´ graduate fashion show later this year.

Those were five days full of fun and jokes. Some of which got even translated from Italian for me to understand. 

Go Puppies! :)

Decembery Rome had plenty of sunshine along with occasional frost bites.

I hope to be back again in this beautiful historic city!

Riina O is thrilled to announce our next appearance at the largest Robotics Festival on the Planet - Robotex International 2018, held in Tallinn, Estonia, 30th November - 2nd December.

There will be over 75 speakers from 20 countries taking the stage in Tallinn through 30th Nov - 1st Dec 2018 at Robotex International Conference whilst the Robotex EXPO will display the cutting edge robotics innovations. Being part of it with Riina O x Helen Leigh leather covered unicorn robot with the microchipped control glove is beyond thrilling for us!

The topics discussed at the Conference vary from Data Science and Autonomous Vehicles to Cyber Security and Space Tech. There will be discussions on how the world is about to change in the next 2-5 years time, and what will come after that. Attendees have also the chance to join in panel discussions on various topics and learn how to build their first robot in the workshops.

It’s not far until the robots, cyborgs, avatars and other mechanic...

Riina O is always interested in exciting collaborations, no matter how unexpected they might sound at first. This season one of the collaborations reaches out all the way into the robotics!

Together with the maker, educator and children´s author Helen Leigh was created a black leather robot unicorn with metal studs and an opalescent 3D printed horn, controlled by gestures with an elbow length microchipped leather glove.

Based on the unicorn robot model Helen had created earlier for Do It Kits, our Rob (short for Roberta) got a make-over in hand-stitched black leather with metal studs and an elegant microchipped control glove.

"As a leather glove designer I feel that covering a robot with hand-stitched leather adds a certain humane aspect to it”.