At Work With Harveys

Today we are so excited to welcome Harveys to the blog! We absolutely love their products and their inspiring business model. Ready to read more about this awesome company?

“We are Harveys, a group of happy people who love discovering, designing and making handbags & lifestyle goods in sunny Southern California. It all started in a tiny garage with husband and wife, Dana & Melanie Harvey. While restoring their classic car, Dana came up with the idea to make Melanie a matching handbag with the leftover seat belts. Everyone loved hers so much, they decided to make more – and the rest is history!

“We are located in Santa Ana, CA, where everything is designed, manufactured and sold in our concept store and gallery, The Factory. We are a bunch of goofy people who mostly have fun, play with our dogs, and manage to get some work done as well. The kind of work we do and where we do it is a big part of the brand. We get to experience the full life cycle of a product and that has a big effect on how we design. When you are actually making the stuff that’s in your head as well as selling it to the public a few feet away, it inspires you to make quality stuff that can last a lifetime. It’s like a closed ecosystem for products with everything under one roof. We can design something and have a finished good in one day.

“In our employees, we look for artists, designers and crafters that share a similar aesthetic and ethos as us. We also try to curate products that inspire us either in mission or creativity. It’s an amazing opportunity to work with upcoming brands that we are vibing on.

“For the design of our retail space, we wanted to make a really minimalist and modern space that you could also feel really comfortable in. We took our old offices, stripped everything out of them and took the space down to the bare bones of metal, glass, concrete and wood. The design was an experiment in how you could create by taking away. The airy space lends itself really well to relaxing; you’ll often find us away from our desks in the rope chair or on the couch working on our laptops.

“We also have an amazing outdoor area where we do film screenings, intimate concerts, work or take lunch, and it is often used for photo shoots. The vintage airstream trailer we use for events has a home in the front of the store with a portable deck and chairs. The airstream is a great conversation starter and doubles as a workspace!

“Around the side of the building, we created a California Native garden that is home to pretty plants and butterflies. Our garden design has reduced our water consumption by 70% from the boring grass we had before, which is an awesome bonus. In the garden is our upcycled playground ball that’s made from two neglected, trashed half domes fused together to form a playground ball that the kids just can’t resist (who are we kidding, we climb on it too).”

So fun! You can shop Harveys here and follow them on Instagram here. xo.

Credits// Author: Dana Harvey Jr. Photography: Jessica Rice McNew.