Suddenly, Braille is now cool and is worn by the world's beautiful people.
However, some Braille activists are decrying this trend and calling it
"not the best form of education, as the article below describes.

kelly

The Wall Street Journal

    September 2, 1999 [INLINE]

Marketplace

An Old Alphabet for the Blind
Is Turned Into Hot Accessories

   By KEMBA J. DUNHAM
   Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

   This fall, a company called Lara Boeing 747 will launch a jewelry
   collection with the phrase "love is blind" in Braille on edgy-looking
   plastic cuffs and skin-toned rubber bracelets. The dots aren't raised,
   so blind people won't be able to understand the words. But company
   founder Lara Bohinc just thinks Braille looks cool. "It's graphically
   beautiful," the London designer effuses.

   In trendy circles from New York to London, beautiful young people have
   seized on a 175-year-old alphabet for the blind and made it the latest
   in hot accessories. The new teen magazine CosmoGirl! recently included
   the dotted jewelry in a short list of items "coming fast," along with
   videophones and T-shirts with airbrush designs. This fall, New York
   designer Kevin Carney will introduce his "Braille" T-shirt line in
   boutiques world-wide. Versace is selling shirts and skirts adorned
   with little dots that look like Braille.

   Retailers say customers are snapping up Braille fashion because it
   offers a sleek, streamlined look for the next millennium. "It's very
   futuristic," says Aimee Mercer, an accessory buyer for Henri Bendel in
   New York, which will carry the "love is blind" line this fall.

   Friends and couples often buy identical pieces as a way of sharing a
   secret message with each other. Some people feel the jewelry presents
   an aura of mystery to the rest of the world. "People are always asking
   me, 'What are those bumps?' " says Heather Leake, an advertising
   executive in Philadelphia, who bought a Braille ring for herself.
   illustration
   Braille letters appear as smooth marks on Lara Boeing 747 bracelets.

   But as this surprising trend takes off, it is splintering the little
   world of Braille jewelry designers. On one side is Ms. Bohinc, who
   cheerfully appropriates Braille to make her jewelry look sleek. On the
   other are designers who object to appropriation of Braille as a
   gimmick. Not only do they use real Braille (that is, with bumps) on
   their jewelry, but they are also selling it as a way of spreading
   awareness about the alphabet. And they either donate jewelry or a
   portion of their sales to organizations representing the blind
   community.

   Their efforts have a context. In recent years, Braille advocates have
   been embroiled in a fight to preserve the relevance of the code, which
   was invented by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1824. With such
   technological advances as talking computers, some schools have been
   reluctant to teach Braille to their visually impaired students. A
   dearth of qualified teachers adds to the struggle.

   To the jewelers who are faithful to the code, Ms. Bohinc's pieces are
   an abomination. "It's like taking the alphabet and turning it into
   gibberish," says Danusia Niklewicz, a jeweler from Encino, Calif., who
   has been making Braille rings since 1996.

   New York designer Christopher Roule has even more at stake. Because
   his Braille jewelry has been more prominent in the fashion world, Ms.
   Bohinc is directly infringing on his turf. "Without a doubt, it's a
   threat to my business," he says.

   Breath of Fresh Air

   Mr. Roule became infatuated with Braille at a time when he began
   feeling overwhelmed by the ubiquity of the Internet, cell phones and
   fax machines. He found Braille a breath of fresh air, a more intimate
   and tactile form of communication that he wanted to share with the
   sighted world.

   In 1995, the longtime jeweler set out to create the "design of his
   life." He used only the finest metals to showcase the Braille dots on
   the outside and then spelled out the translation on the inside. The
   price: $70 to $5,000.

                                                             illustration
                                         Braille letters appear on a dog.

   Although he initially sent out 2,000 informational postcards to a
   melange of boutiques and magazines, no one was interested. "There was
   just so much resistance," says Mr. Roule. "The sighted community was
   only used to seeing Braille in elevators and on ATM machines."

   Over the last few years, Mr. Roule has watched his popularity increase
   in tandem with the rise of jewelry with spiritual and intellectual
   themes. In June, he designed a white-gold Braille wedding ring for
   Scott Petry, a marketing executive in San Francisco. The band contains
   the word "believe" to represent the year that he and Meike, now his
   wife, endured a long-distance relationship between San Francisco and
   Germany. Mr. Petry says he can't stop touching the ring. "I have such
   a visceral attachment to it," he adds.

   When Mr. Roule heard about Ms. Bohinc's jewelry earlier this year, he
   became angry. He had already issued a statement highlighting his Web
   site and the fact that his jewelry is trademarked. One of his London
   vendors, he says, even contacted Ms. Bohinc to find out what her plans
   were with her jewelry. "I just don't want to start seeing Braille on a
   bunch of candy wrappers," Mr. Roule says. (Ms. Bohinc says she never
   heard of Mr. Roule.)

   'I Love You'

   Kim Christiansen feels equally protective of his jewelry. The Norwich,
   Vt., designer says he turned to Braille in 1989 while trying to devise
   a unique birthday gift for his wife. With the help of the Braille
   Institute of America's branch office in Santa Barbara, Calif., he
   designed a pair of sterling silver earrings with "I love you" coded in
   Braille.

   Soon Mr. Christiansen was making an array of pieces embossed with such
   words as "harmony" and "serenity" in Braille, and exhibiting his wares
   at conventions for the blind around the country.

                                                             illustration
              Braille letters appear as tactile bumps on these necklaces.

   His jewelry landed in the hands of such celebrities as musician Stevie
   Wonder. A pair of his earrings went into the Smithsonian's permanent
   costume collection in 1992. Three years later, Mr. Christiansen won
   the first Creative Use of Braille Award from the American Printing
   House for the Blind, based in Louisville, Ky.

   Despite such exposure, Mr. Christiansen's jewelry remains largely
   unknown outside of the blind community. Through his largely mail-order
   business, he prices his jewelry from $20 to $200. In February, he quit
   his job as an insurance executive to focus on bringing his jewelry
   further into the sighted world.

   Some advocates for the blind assert that the growing use of Braille in
   jewelry, even when the dots aren't raised, is better than no exposure
   at all.

   "It might not be the best form of education," says Betty Niceley,
   president of the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille, a
   division of the National Federation of the Blind, Baltimore. "But at
   least the sighted are learning about the dot formation."

   Many retailers don't care about the distinction. Troy Pierce, a
   creative director for Manhattan-based Antique Boutique, says that when
   he selected Ms. Bohinc's jewelry for the fall, aesthetics and design
   were what he had in mind. "It's not about blind rights," he says.


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