Vineta Abele isn’t the name of the shop, but the name of the person behind the style and designs. Vineta is a former native citizen of Latvia, of the former Soviet Union. Due to the post-collapse lack of variety in fashion stores, she had to be creative and so used her resourcefulness (because she lacked money to buy foreign made clothes) to create a line of uniquely designed scarves and necktie styled belts.
For materials to create her fashions she would raid the closets of her female relatives and would use a very old Singer to put her ideas together. Initially Vineta admits “Often result was .... not quite wearable, but I got better and better” and she adds “I am looking at HUGE stash of fabric what I collected over years (mostly from eBay, garage sales, thrift stores and from good people who gave fabric to me) and I am SO grateful and happy to have it all, but... what is the point if I can’t share it with everybody else. I like to be as green and as organic as possible and I think we should be smart also to help our children and us to live healthy and good lives.”
Her entire business philosophy is to recycle, using fabrics previously used in other articles of clothing and to reuse when she can from items she does not sell. Vineta likes to give gifts in fabric bags, so the bags are not thrown out, but hopefully used by her customers for other projects or reasons, or to be gifts themselves. “I like to use what I have and try to reuse and repurpose already existing fabrics and fibers. Gifts are often given in paper and then paper is ... gone. I thought it is good idea to give gifts in fabric bags which can be used again for gift giving” is her sincere belief and is why she uses fabric instead of disposable paper containers.
Goodwill and thrift shops are her main source for fabric and she often alters existing designs so she is able to rescue items from goodwill. “Also neckties - they are often very beautiful and lonely in those goodwill stores or in my husband’s collection that I decided to give them THE new, more exciting look.” She has gone from just neckties to belts and intends to expand her range to include other items for a wider audience of buyers.
What I, the writer bought from this store:
If you are interested in browsing and possibly buying, the name of her store is TieTandem and the link to her store is here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TieTandem
