How Isabella Lalonde Of Beepy Bella Breaks Down Boundaries For Limitless Creativity
The rising jewelry designer speaks with V about encouraging people to escape into a Utopian world of their own with her line.
With a background in fine art and performance art, the NYC based jewelry mogul wows people with her wonderful and fairy-like fantasy world. Through her work, she encourages others to escape into a world of their own and channel their inner creativity. Lalonde spoke with V to discuss her uniquely hand-crafted jewelry line and the message behind it all!
Beepy Bella, a unique, customizable jewelry brand brought to life by the charismatic Isabella Lalonde, goes far beyond the brand label. “I think there’s a lot of messages in it because for me, Beepy Bella is very much like an autobiography; extremely genuine and I explore different universes within one world,” says Lalonde. Having a background in fine art and performance art, she has always been world-building and fell in love with the utopia that exists within an individual’s subconscious.With each piece, Lalonde is imagining and bringing to life another aspect of a utopian world. Beepy Bella is a fairy tale, a fantasy world with mushrooms and frogs and fairies; it is an incredible world in which imagination knows no limits. With the label, Lalonde desires “to spark that feeling in other people where they feel curious about what they’re wearing and the world, and they are excited by the idea of creating fantasies that are subjective to their own tastes.” She goes on to say, “I really do want to share that type of escapism with my customers and make them feel like the world has no boundaries to them.”
Lalonde tells V how Beepy Bella is an exploration of self, saying “I put my identity into every vein of this brand, and it challenges me personally and professionally to grow and to become a better person.” Being a Gemini herself, the designer is no stranger to the notion of duality; describing these two sides to herself that work in conjunction with one another while also challenging each other to grow. She mentions, “I often feel that my brand is my soulmate, making me a better person like that. It helps me understand who I am, and it helps me like it’s a catalyst in my growth.”
When speaking about the inception of the brand, Lalonde discusses how one’s ability to channel their best self through design and fashion was a big instigator for the development of the brand, saying “I’ve always loved fashion and playing dress-up, channeling different characters and emotions, and subconscious feelings through my daily outfits. Even when I was doing performance arts, fashion and jewelry was a big part of how I communicated my character’s personalities.” She felt the way that she dressed along with fashion as a whole was the way people actually got to know her, being that when she was younger, she described herself as very shy, telling V “I knew I had this crazy imagination and world inside of me. I just didn’t know how to express it. [I was] the quietest person in the room. Bella for me is a way to give other people that, to create art and wearable creations that helps people find their identity, help people channel who they are on the inside in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to channel if they didn’t own that piece.”
Another way the brand enables individuals to be expressive while also taking part in Lalonde’s work is by offering customizable jewelry. Customizable jewelry is much like the collaborations that she has had with artists, saying “the same way that I think about collaborating with different artists and having their interpretation of my brand and my identity portrayed through their styles is the same way that I think about my clients and giving them the imagination and the creativity and the freedom to design and to create whatever they want. And I will do my best to interpret that.” She explains that this allows her to develop amazing relationships as she is able to be a part of people’s lives in a totally new way. It is a connection that is much more personal, saying “I feel like fashion is often you seeing something online, you buy it, and then it arrives. But I think with Beepy Bella it’s more like you are enchanted by my world and I’m enchanted by you for being enchanted by my world. And then we have a conversation, we grow together. I learn more about you. I make you a piece that means something special to you.”
Not only a utopian world, but the brand also represents a form of escapism. Amidst the COVID mayhem, Lalonde found an opportunity to bring her creativity to life during the quarantine. Ironically while this was a period of isolation and confinement for many, Lalonde sought it out as an opportunity to break free and use the extra time to create her fantasy world, saying “At the time, I was working a full-time job as well, and I always wanted something to break me out of that routine. I felt so trapped. Like every day you have to do the same thing, same hours. And it’s just like this cycle.” Lalonde wants to enable people to find their own space and their own sense of escapism with her jewelry line much as she did. This is a large motive behind many of her projects, saying “My whole point of trying to get on that Time Square billboard was to have an art installation on a really mainstream and commercial billboard. And I feel like that’s really representative of what I’m trying to do with my brand where it’s kind of like I break into a space to disrupt it and kind of turn the wheel a little bit and make people think a little bit harder about what that space can be.”
Besides one of a kind jewelry, Lalonde managed to creat was a fairytale book and soundscape vinyl. A large concept of the book was reorganizing old imagery, saying “I want to reinvigorate it in a way that I feel like was a step towards sustainability with content production. So it’s just about a way to rethink that image so we can take all the pollution that it took to make that image and kind of make it worth it.” She opened the book up for anyone who wanted to create fantasy-themed art and was ecstatic about the responses. Her sister had created the soundscape vinyl, which was the song playing through the gallery. “The intention is that people read the book at the same time, they’re listening to the ambient music, and it puts you into this world that is Beepy Bella and is immersive and is what I find to be healing.” As Beepy Bella continues to spread immense positivity, self-growth, and expression with fantasy pieces, Lalonde proves that creativity and imagination are truly limitless.
Discover the world of Beepy Bella HERE!