Everything about Hannah Herr is bold. Rocking a bright floral print dress, monochromatic striped wedges, and huge hoop earrings with tiny bells, she is easy to spot in even the busiest of Bushwick’s brunch spots.
At 25, Herr is already a jewelry designer, artist, and part owner and founder of the nonprofit Daughters Rising. Herr’s style is immediately noticeable: it’s unique, insanely colorful and effortless, which reflects her bubbly, strong and captivating character.
Growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Herr’s natural gravitation towards creative expression led her to New York City.
“When I was little, my grandma took me to a Ten Thousand Villages event,” Herr recalls. “The company originates from Lancaster, but our little town didn’t sell anything quite like the pieces at Ten Thousand Villages. When I first saw the colorful beaded necklaces, gold bangles, and earrings that were made by artisans I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life.” She graduated with a BFA in Fine Arts from The New School in 2009.
“I’ve always wanted to study fashion design but realized that I didn’t fit in in the fashion industry. It wasn’t for me in my first year of undergrad. I stuck with fine arts but continued to design jewelry as a hobby. What I love about jewelry is that anyone can wear it. There are no sizes. Shopping for jewelry is easy and fun,” she says with laugh.
Herr landed her first job out of undergrad as a jewelry designer for a wholesale jewelry company, Jane Diaz in Soho. Working at Jane Diaz helped Herr lay down her foundation as a jewelry designer. She worked in production and sold at tradeshows. This is where Herr learned how the industry works.
With her experience in jewelry design, Herr and friend/business partner Alexa Pham, whom she met by chance while serving tables at a restaurant in East Village, started Daughters Rising, a nonprofit that works to empower girls through education to end sex trafficking. As the Director of Artisan Outreach and Product Development for the nonprofit, Herr launched the RISE UP shop to help mothers in impoverished rural villages to earn for their families.
The RISE UP shop buys handmade crafts at a fair price to sell online in the US and gives 100% of the proceeds back. The price covers cost and the proceeds are donated directly to a tribe Herr and Pham have contact with. Initially the evolution of the organization was a big learning experience.
“Having to figure out exactly what the community actually needs and a realistic picture of what we are able to do is one of the toughest parts of setting up Daughters Rising” says Herr. “For example – Because of the language barrier between middle school, where Karen is spoken, and high school – Thai, in the Karen Hill Tribe, we realized we needed to teach the younger girls Thai to prepare them for high school then offer scholarships for high school age girls. This is something we learned after really being in the community for a while to see how the education system works. It’s a big learning curve but we’re working to improve and become more sustainable and effective”
Having just officially launched the website recently, the team hope to establish themselves in the community and have Hannah’s original designs become a lucrative source for both the organization and the women. Currently they are sponsoring 3 girls; their goal is to sponsor at least 10.
As the Director for Artisan Outreach, Herr has lived in Mongolia on a Fulbright research grant to study Kazakh traditional craft. It’s easy to see how this pivotal event shaped Herr’s style and passion. Much of the jewelry is Herr’s original designs. When asked why she chose the Kazak, she explained she had never seen anything like it before – the patterns are very distinct and defy classification with other regions.
“I get my inspiration from vintage fabrics from the Hmong tribes in Thailand and Khazak fabrics from Mongolia,” she says. “The fabrics are beautiful. I let them speak for themselves when I’m designing.” Her inspiration is apparent in her artwork, photographs, accessories, and above all her style.
Herr wears a short pixie cut with gold rings in her septum piercing. As this is a queer magazine, I asked how she identifies. With a laugh and a smile she explains, “I’m straight. I’m the artsy type, a feminist and I have short hair. I’ve always felt pressured by art school and my queer friends to like women. I don’t see myself as a close-minded person so I gave it a shot. I went on a date with a girl and it didn’t work out on my end. It makes me feel less of an artsy chick because I’m so hetero. If you talk to me for at least half an hour, you’d know I’m actually straight”.
Perhaps being queer isn’t entirely about sexual orientation. Albeit sexual orientation is a crucial part of queer, but larger than who we choose to sleep with and how we represent ourselves is the community and culture queers create to foster individual expression in endless forms of art.
For more information about…
Bushwick Open Studio/Kickstarter event
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