Our sixth Secret Catalog comes with a theme: KIDS! We’ve known for quite some time that we would like to curate an SC filled to the brim with our favorite kids' goods, artists, and activities. This year, all of those pieces fell into place.

When Adrienne found out she was pregnant with number two, and as Edla runs around developing at lightyears per second, fascinating us all, we wanted to make something that reflected the joy of childhood’s sweet passage.

Our goal was to make a Secret Catalog for caretakers and children alike.

Bright, poppy, creative, curious, useful

Here are a few of our favorite highlights:

Shooting with Rinne Allen for the third time, this time at Sweet Olive Farm, was wonderful. Rinne has always seen eye to eye with our vision, known where to take us, and just how to capture what we want. Anyone who has worked with her knows she is such a quiet master of her medium, and we feel lucky to be so near to her geographically and relationally.

Meeting and working alongside Paige French for the first time was an exceptional experience. She was brought on to do our kid-laden clothes shoot, and she didn’t miss a single step. Even when there were, at one point, more than twelve kids running around the STATE studio, Paige was there in quiet grace, capturing such beautiful, lively, exceptional images.

STATE’s own Kids line emerged from the KIDS Secret Catalog as well. We met a woman and seamstress in Thomson named Charlotte (a friend of the woman who made our STATE washcloths last catalog) who is an impeccable children’s clothing maker. She partnered with us, as much of the sewing was done by our own production team, to create a number of elegant, playful STATE Kids items.

James, son of Jenna Wilson of Ace & Jig, created a line called “sheros,” and we think they are truly magnificent. We're so happy he let us show them to the world.

 

Nikaela Peters wrote something that astonished us all.

"Purple: The butterfly we saw emerging from its chrysalis at the zoo.  The paper sack hung there and then there were legs and then hard work and then a sort of sad struggling body stumbled part way out.  Emerged feels too smooth a word.  It didn’t emerge so much as break free. I have read that inside the chrysalis there is just goop: the caterpillar breaks down before the butterfly begins to grow.  Inside a chrysalis is decay like the decay in my compost bin.  Wouldn’t it be nice if it were otherwise?  If transformation was a matter of hiding away and taking your time and growing wings?  I would prefer to imagine transformation in this way.  But transformation in this case comes out of commitment and compromise.  And Loss.  Not complete death, but complete loss.  I feel deceived on this front.  The stories and songs from my childhood had me believing that life came from life.   That the kind of death that gave way to life was a sort of “faux-death”: inside winter hid spring.  But that isn’t true.  Spring is nowhere in winter.

The butterfly at the zoo was the Emperor butterfly.  But I’ve never see a butterfly look less regal."

Our studio assistant Lindsey sat on the floor of her kitchen for several hours while attempting to learn to use a 35mm camera via youtube videos, so she could photograph the flowers she’d dyed for the how-to.

We couldn’t be happier with how it everything shook out, and getting to work with our dream designers was a dream. We couldn't have done it without them. 

Check it out here.

ACE & JIG
BABY DEGEN
BLABLA
EAST FORK POTTERY
HILLERY SPROATT
IN & OF
KATIE LEBEL
NEVE & HAWK
NICOLA GARDINER
PULP CO
RHYMES WITH FUN
RUDY JUDE
SHELTER
STATE
STONE COLD STYLE LA
TREEHOUSE KID + CRAFT
UPON A WOODEN CUBE
WILDFLOWER MORNINGS
WILLABY
ZIMMERMAN SHOES