Everybody Matters

My Story and How Betty Belts Happened in Skirt Magazine

Here’s my story and how Betty Belts came about. It’s a fascinating read, I have to admit, a little strange for me, seeing it here in print. The Skirt reporter, Charlene Ross, did a great job of piecing it all together from a two hour long recording of my ramblings, jumping from one subject to another, going off on interesting tangents. Not an easy task!

Enjoy! – Donna

Donna von Hoesslin: Surfer – Designer – Activist

Author- Charlene Ross for Skirt Magazine

Donna Surfing at Queens, Waikiki. Pure bliss. Photo copyright David Pu'u.

Donna von Hoesslin is a California girl who followed a drummer to Europe at the age of 17 and ended up living in Berlin for 17 years. She married into German nobility and was living the fabulous life of the social elite. During her time abroad she held various jobs as a fashion designer, translator and back-up singer for a European two-hit wonder band.

But the very first time Donna stepped on a surfboard at the age of 31 her life changed forever. She was hooked instantly and became passionate about surfing and would travel often to faraway places so she could ride the waves. Unfortunately it was a passion her husband did not share. One day after returning home from a surf trip Donna and her husband Elmar realized that their marriage had turned into a convenient friendship and the word divorce hung in the air between them. They both cried. Today they are separated by 5,000 miles, but truly remain the closest of friends.

Betty Belts

Donna came back the states and moved into a shared beach house in her hometown of Santa Cruz so she could make surfing a part of everyday life. To make a living she became a…

(Click here to read rest of story. Or on the link below.)

http://ventura.skirt.com/shes_so_skirt/donna-von-hoesslin-surfer-designer-activist

My New Collection of Jewelry Made from Upcycled Surfboard Resin

I just cranked out this ad for DEEP Magazine, featuring Sierra and Hailey Partridge of Team Betty and debuting my Surfboard Resin jewelry collection.

The surfboard resin jewelry is a fantastic achievement. We finally found a beautiful solution for the waste byproduct resin created by surfboard building. It took a year of R&D, but the results were well worth the wait and I have to say, everyone who comes into the shop and sees these pendants and earrings is completely enchanted by them and even more so when they find out the story behind them; Each stripe in the jewelry is excess resin from a locally made surfboard, connected to a surfer riding that board, connecting to the ocean.

I debuted the collection at the Sacred Craft in Santa Cruz. Check out our little cameo in this video about this important surfboard culture event, which Betty Belts has been a part of for the past four years.

The jewelry is not yet available on our website, but can be ordered through the Betty B. retail store in Ventura at 805.648.6997

You can also see more photos and shapes on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bettybelts

I Need GSP to Stay in Business

I just wrote to Senator Feinstein and Congressman Gallegly to implore them to help revive the GSP program, the removal of it is causing me to have to raise my prices once again to stay in business. This, after a tremendous hike in the price of silver and a weaker dollar forced me to do that already once this year.

I can see this being the final nail in the coffin of many small businesses like my own. The artisans around the world who depend on us for work will be facing less contracts and lost income. I am going to do my very best to keep my own busy, because that has always been my promise to them, but this is going to be a very big challenge for my business.

Meanwhile we have added local USA production (very expensive already) of some designs in the collection, but I still pledge to support the Balinese people I have been working with for all these years.

Grrrr… The good news is, GSP has expired before and been revived. It can happen again. Fingers crossed.

This is what it’s about:

On December 31, 2010, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program expired. GSP extends duty-free treatment to several thousand products imported into the United States from more than two-thirds of the world’s countries. GSP is an important way American companies keep costs down. Large and small businesses import products duty-free under GSP. 

Fake Authenticity: How Big Brands Steal Creativity

(I originally posted this in 2007, when I heard about Robb Havassy and his battle with Hollister & Co. to defend surf culture, a veritable David and Goliath story. This man is a hero for surfers everywhere.)

The quote below is from a Transworld Business article about how some big box retailers marketing themselves as “authentic” are nothing of the sort. I personally know other independent designers whose designs have been copied by many so-called authentic brands. The sad thing is, people don’t even realize that these brands don’t truly have their own identity, but steal ideas from other creative people who are too small to defend themselves.

So why on earth couldn’t Hollister just make their own Surfboard? Hollister is NOT a real surf brand, it’s a fake one! (sigh)
Be authentic, buy authentic!

“It’s no secret that over the course of the past few years Hollister Co., the mall-based store owned by Abercrombie and Fitch Co. has been marketing its apparel as a surf brand. While several endemic companies have argued that Hollister has borrowed designs and concepts from their lines, no one in the surf market has tried to substantiate the claims, until now.
On March 6, 36-year-old artist Robb Havassy, whose art has been licensed out to brands such as Reef, Op, and Robert August in the past, filed a lawsuit against Hollister Co. It alleges that the brand created more than 300 exact replicas of a surfboard that he custom-painted and displayed the reproductions in the front windows of its stores nationwide without his knowledge or approval. The suit claims Hollister is liable for the unauthorized use of his artwork and personal identity in its national in-store marketing and branding campaign. Havassy is seeking remuneration for the use of his artwork and name by Hollister over the past several years and for any future use, as well as public acknowledgment that they used his graphic designs without his knowledge and permission.

“I’m not exactly sure where they got it, but somebody got a hold of it and they dug it and thought that it should be at the front of the store and be a part of their whole look”, says Havassy, who admits to being impressed with how precisely the brand managed to duplicate his work. “They’re identical. Exactly. Down to my signature and my date on the signature. They replicated it identically, to the duct tape on the nose and little repair marks on the deck. People say I should be pissed, but… ”

- Excerpt from a Transworld Business Article that was published in 2007, but has since  unfortunately been removed from the archives (I wish I still had the entire article for you). You can read a related, updated Transworld Business Article (from the perspective of the surf industry) here:

http://business.transworld.net/features/how-hollister-co-stole-surf-eight-years-after-abercrombie-fitch-invaded-the-surf-market-what-can-be-done-to-defend-against-them/

And I highly recommend you read Robb Havassy’s story about how he takes back surf culture for the rest of us here:  http://www.ocregister.com/articles/havassy-252308-surf-art.html

A copy of Robb Havassy's Surfboard in Hollister Display. They even copied his RH signature at the bottom

Seth on Scale

“It’s good because rightsizing allows you to be profitable and live as a human.”

Today’s Daily Dose of Seth once again just nails it. This is one of many reasons I don’t send my designs free to celebrities and don’t want to sell my brand to Macy’s or Urban Outfitters. I keep BB small and manageable so I don’t lose control and can keep surfing, but most of all, so it can remain win-win for my artisans, my staff, my self and my customers. In manageable scale.

Once, in 2007, my brand was on display at the National Retail Federation’s annual “Big Show” at Javitz Center in NYC, in the “Store of the Future” installation of a Pop-up Store.

I felt like such a prostitute when I saw who was coming. The C-Class of all the big box retailers marched through and I had to stand there and explain to them why they needed to make environmental and social responsibility a priority. A major shoes and accessories chain asked me to create a cheap line of jewelry for them which I felt would have necessitated exploitation of the people making them to get the price as  low as they needed it so I simply said NO.

Thank you, Seth, once again, for confirming what I already knew in my heart.

Ready for the doors to open.