A Conversation with the Artist: Isa Kriegeskotte
How I met Isa
I met Isa Kriegeskotte in the summer of 2020. We were on a boat. The day had unfurled like the most beautiful bloom of the season. I was instantly charmed. Isa and I had so much in common. We both grew up in Westchester, about a 20 minute drive from each other's houses. We are each career creatives, passionate about fashion, art and design, and indelibly shaped by our relationships with our grandmothers. Most notably we met each other at the base of the same precipice, joined by the question, is it possible to build our careers out of Essex, NY?
I had been living in Essex for 2 ½ years at this point, deeply in love with the place, and about to open my first storefront for Kit+Syl Studio. Isa was returning to a home away from home after 9 years of living and working in the high fashion world of New York and LA. She was a COVID refugee, violently flung out of a place that never felt quite right back to a town that felt like home, but would be an odd career move to say the least. She wanted to believe that Essex could be the perfect fit...with the right amount of tailoring.
We spent the afternoon crashing through bits and pieces of our shared history. She underplayed her career as a couture tailor, more specifically as “tailor to the stars,” if she spoke of it at all. She was excited about a new jewelry line she had designed, and was hoping to launch soon. Although fascinating, it wasn't her resume that drew my attention. I was charmed by Isa’s genuine ease, openness and kindness, her outpouring of grace. It wasn’t until well into the first year of our friendship that I began to truly understand the unique talents and impressive pedigree of my new friend.
It’s been about a year since that beautiful day on the boat. The jewelry collection that held so much excitement during that initial meeting is now prominently displayed at Kit+Syl Studio. Isa has launched her brand, Living Pearl. I met with Isa this past Friday morning for an informal conversation, a practice I plan to do with all of the artists whose work I carry in my shop. Over breakfast sandwiches at The Pink Pig I asked Isa about her creative journey, her relationship to Essex, and Living Pearl.
Isa in Essex
Well before Isa was described in the Hollywood Reporter as “a secret weapon whispered about among red carpet stylists like Erin Walsh and Kate Young,” she was looking forward to annual family trips to the Adirondacks. Each year the Kriegeskotte’s would vacation across the lake in Vergennes, but come July a group of family and friends would pile into their steamboats and make the long-awaited trip across Lake Champlain to Essex. The destination, the little ice cream shop on the Essex Main street. Isa loved this tradition and how over the years Essex became a beloved town to her family.
In addition to ice cream and Essex, the Kriegeskottes have deep roots in Camp Poko-Macready. Isa’s father, Carl Alden Kriegeskotte, aka “C.A. Krieg,” spent his childhood summers at Camp Pok-O-Moonshine. Isa and her brother, Christian were fortunate enough to follow in their father’s footsteps as the next generation of campers. Isa even went on to work at the camp.
Once Isa’s work as a couture tailor relocated her life to LA she was no longer able to visit the cherished mountains of her youth as much as she would have liked, but she returned for that annual summer trip whenever possible.
In 2020 COVID hit, leaving Isa displaced from her home and career. She took the opportunity to pack up her business, and head somewhere new. Around the same time the Kriegeskottes received sad news. Carl, who had suffered from pancreatic cancer over the years, was given a grim diagnosis. He only had 6 months left to live. As time grew scarce the family decided to reunite over a common love, Essex and the Adirondacks. Carl’s final visit to Essex was a chance for all of them to reconnect and indulge in the simple pleasures that they had enjoyed as a family before sickness and distance.
Carl passed away on Monday, January 11, 2021. The family has since set up a scholarship fund in his memory. All donations will go towards helping to make the enriching experience of outdoor education accessible to future generations of Pok-O campers. Isa shared this site with me after our interview. I knew that her father was sick and had passed away, but we had never spoken in depth about his life. The scholarship page includes a brief but beautiful bio about Carl. It details a full and awe inspiring life. Reading these words provided me with new insight into Isa’s background, and added to my understanding of the role her roots have played in her life and career.
NYC to LA to Essex...
The 2020 trip was a turning point. Grounded in her love for the area, and a clear vision for her career ahead, Isa decided that she would settle in Essex. Despite her shining reputation as a tailor to the stars, she had always felt strongly that one day she would create her own brand. It was the natural next step in her career. She made the choice to move to the North Country with confidence, despite how unorthodox the location was for a fledging fashion brand. A year after settling in Essex, Isa launched the first collection of Living Pearl.
You are a Living Pearl
The Living Pearl inaugural collection is a jewelry line, not an obvious choice for a career tailor. I asked Isa how it felt to design in a material other than fabric. I loved her response. She needed a break from fabric. She found immense joy and inspiration from working with a hard material that could not be tailored or altered. She smiled with satisfaction and said, “No one can tell me it doesn’t fit.”
The inspiration for an accessory line grew from a past life when Isa worked in New York City with accessory designers, most notably making hats for Rod Keenan NY, a boutique hat company based out of Harlem. Isa credits Keenan as an entrepreneurial influence. Being part of this world at such a young age and point in her career allowed her to see that nothing is out of reach. She is entering this new room of her profession with this mindset in hand.
Living Pearl centers on self-expression, a theme that is paramount in Isa’s work. After a career filled with tailoring couture gowns, and dressing celebrities who were destined to be asked the age-old question, “who are you wearing,” she came to see accessorizing as a wonderful gateway to self-expression. She loves how a hat, ring, or chunky pair of earrings can speak to the personality of the one wearing the clothing rather than the clothing label they are wearing. Isa strives to celebrate the wearer as curator through each of her designs.
Creating this first jewelry line led to a deeper understanding of what kind of brand Isa wanted to build. Once the collection was put to paper the concept of the overall brand became clear and Living Pearl was realized.
Why I Love This Line
When Isa and I decided that I would sell Living Pearl at Kit+Syl she gifted me a piece of jewelry of my choosing. I was delighted. After trying on a few options I selected the Bunny Hole hoops. They are light, playful, and confidently designed. This is the first piece I have worn outside of my own work since I began making jewelry, and it feels like an absolute treat.
Living Pearl’s premiere line is refreshingly quirky. It hits on two levels. First with its beauty. The admirer is drawn in by classic shapes, precious metals and the allure of gems. At a closer look the pieces strike with a burst of joy. The collection contains rings that open to reveal hidden spaces, a pair of lips delicately holding a ruby, beautiful enough to eat. There is even a nod to original sin with an apple pendant grasped in the curves of a snake. Of course the apple is also a locket meant to safely enclose your best kept secrets.
Isa designed this line with the goal of creating high quality, but affordable pieces. There are options made of 100% recycled brass, plated in a thick level of 14k gold, and adorned with crystals. There are also various fine pieces available, fabricated in pure 14k gold and detailed with tasteful precious gems such as rubies, diamonds and emeralds.
The branding is perfect. A concept well earned after years of challenging work just as an oyster takes the painful presence of a grain of sand, and turns it into something unique and magical.
I’m pleased to report that we can already look forward to seeing more from Living Pearl. Isa has been working on rendering the next collection, a line fittingly inspired by nature. Down the road Isa plans to return to her home medium of fabric and will expand Living Pearl to include clothing.
Operating out of a storefront means that I often encounter curious Essex visitors. They are not shy about sharing how perplexed and awestruck they are by our extreme way of life up here in the North Country. I assure each of them that what Essex lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. Isa passes these standards with flying colors. I am just as charmed by this force of a woman as I was the day I met her. Isa’s thoughtful relationship to her career, her modesty, her talent and her work ethic have already inspired my relationship to my own business and art practice. I am so grateful that she has chosen the road less travelled here in Essex.
