ch ch ch changes

on august 4th 2008 jamie and i launched our website, www.shopbando.com. it was a simple, cheerful site packed with twenty something images of jamie modeling headbands that we had made while sitting (and sweating) in the living room of my house. mere moments after launching, we got our first sale . . . then another, and another. it was exhilarating. people were actually buying our creations. and they weren't cheap, so we figured we must be onto something special here. our friends in the blog world helped spread the word and then soon after, dailycandy contacted us. we screamed and jumped up and down . . . this publicity would most certainly make us millionaires. well, it didn't, but it did give us invaluable exposure. next came the magazines, our publicists, celebrity clients and shop owners, both here and lands far, far away. before we knew it we had a real business, which was quite scary since neither of us had a lick of business experience. still, we pressed on and have been so fortunate to have met tons of amazing people that have gladly lent a hand and help steer us in the right direction.

that leads us to today. just over a year later we are at a major crossroads. it's time to grow ban.do (we're hoping for world wide domination), and we would like to take you along for the ride. we are growing our brand, updating the site, adding new features, new photos and new collections. it might look a little strange over there for a while, but we promise the outcome is going to be amazing. we could be responsible and patient (two qualities we are a bit lacking) and just wait until everything is ready and share it with you all at once, and then we thought better of it. we actually thought it would be way more fun to share the process with you. a little behind the scenes of sorts. and then, you can grow with us. we'll take you on photo shoots with us, share our delirium when we are up designing pieces at midnight (and being scared by a ghost that haunts our studio), heck we might even just post videos of ourselves dancing (something we seem to do a lot). so please stay tuned. our plan is to post at least twice a week and hopefully get this twitter thing going, too.

you can start by heading to the site, checking out the new black label and the additions to our sale page. we've even got a survey that you can fill out and receive $25 off of your next purchase. let us just say that we are so thrilled to be sharing this process with you and sure hope you enjoy the ride.

ps. the amazing photos at the top of this post were taken by the amazingly talented chloe aftel. she's our new best friend.