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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