East & Bays sisters lead the sewing revival

East & Bays sisters lead the sewing revival

Auckland sisters, Ruth and Romy Grbic, have thrown in their day jobs in order to pursue their love for arts and craft. They have pooled their creative resources and together have created their own brand of hand-made purses and jewellery, Ruth and Pony.

Romy laughs when the nickname Pony is brought up, saying “it’s all thanks to predictive text, really. Pony comes up when you’re trying to text Romy. My friends thought it was a bit of a laugh so it’s stuck ever since!”
Ruth and Romy work together in their Mission Bay home, hand stitching each purse and bracelet individually.

“It’s very time consuming, but we love doing it,” says Ruth. “We’ve always discussed starting a label together, and had the name in our mind before we even came up with this particular concept.”

Ruth and Romy also run their own website, www.ruthandpony.com, where you can purchase a unique piece from, and say they owe a lot of their popularity to social media.

“We’ve sold a few purses through the likes of Twitter already. Social media is certainly the new frontier in marketing and best of all, it’s free,” says Romy.
When we spoke to the sisters they were busy finishing off their Easter purse range, which they point out is more waistline-friendly than your average chocolate egg.

“Some of our purses are attractive to children but we’ve also got a very trendy range which young women seem to love. A Ruth And Pony purse is certainly a conversation starter. What’s more our business proves that sewing is making a big come back. Albeit these days it's known more as design,” says Ruth.

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