Introducing MiiR x Noihsaf Bazaar – our newest co-brand partner in custom drinkware and fashionable, responsible accessories.
The future-feeling of Noihsaf isn’t just about community; it stems from a real commitment to sustainability. Not the greenwashed version, but the real thing. Noihsaf is rooted in the idea that well-crafted items can (and should) have multiple lives.
The partnership between two brands is highly strategic. But we have to say, the partnership between Noihsaf Bazaar and MiiR just might be kismet. When Noihsaf was in Seattle for a pop-up, some of our MiiR team (who were already fans from a distance) realized this.
Design-centered, truly sustainable artifacts that bring beauty and joy into the world?
Remaking existing materials into something new and beautiful as a way to honor planet and people?
Be still our heart.
It turns out Noihsaf’s way of being in the world is a lot like MiiR’s. Our Everywhere Line, made responsibly from recycled materials, became the perfect vessel to display the creativity and care of Noihsaf Bazaar. A collaboration on custom water bottles was entirely unavoidable.
Welcome to the MiiR world, Kate Lindello and the entire team at Noihsaf Bazaar!
The beginning of a brand
Remember that unique mix of feelings that would accompany your first day at a new school? The well-intended grownups would always ask if you have butterflies in your tummy, but as any kid can tell you, it’s a bit more nerve wracking to be the new kid than the image of fluttering butterflies might suggest.
Most of us probably have one or two core memories of being that new kid, trying to find our place while trying to figure out ourselves, a barely-manageable mess of excitement and sweaty palms and praying to God that we fit in and stand out at the exact perfect ratio. For Kate Lindello, the swirly discombobulation of being the new kid happened so often it almost became a routine.
After her parents split when she was young, Kate’s world was a Venn diagram that stretched to include suburban Minneapolis, the rural outskirts of Duluth, and a handful of small Minnesota towns thrown in for good measure. As Kate talks about it, though, you start to catch a glimpse of her super power: through some interior strength, Kate was able to transform what amounts to a childhood of liminality–that sense of being in-between and transitional–into a way of being absolutely at home in herself regardless of her exterior circumstances.
It helps that Kate was the original e-girl. The internet expanded her world far beyond the horizon of rural Minnesota while simultaneously rooting her in a community of people that loved what she loved. Together, they voraciously consumed culture like travelers at an oasis in the middle of a desert.
Like for many adolescents, self-expression and clothing quickly became so intertwined as to be indistinguishable.
Add to that the tight budget realities of a single-parent home, the emergence of thrifting as a way of life, and an ever deepening love for fashion, and our origin story is near complete.
The meaning of Noihsaf Bazaar
If The Devil Wears Prada accurately captures the destructive egomania that often centers the fashion industry, then Noihsaf Bazaar, while difficult to pronounce and impossible (for this author) to spell, is the perfect antidote. Noihsaf (‘fashion’ backwards) is like the brand-embodiment of an ancient Jewish mystic’s famous words that, ‘the last shall be first and the first last.’
The exterior side of the story is that Noihsaf Bazaar started as an Instagram account back when IG was 98.6% pictures of food. Kate’s ability to see what’s coming allowed her to look past all the poorly plated brunches and see Instagram for what it’s become: a place to build community and business.
The start of the business
The interior side of the story, though, is that Noihsaf was born at a time when Kate once again found herself in a liminal space. She was a new mom, and like most (all?) new moms, she was awash in love, joy, and wonderment at this new life that she brought into the world with such cacophonous energy and she was awash in exhaustion, boredom, and the chemical whiplash that tags along with growing and sustaining a human with your own body. Shot, chaser.
Which is to say, at a certain level Noihsaf started as a means of distraction and a hope for stabilization. The e-girl’s world was shifting again, dramatically, so Kate did what she knew to do: she built a home for herself by using the internet to connect her with people who love what she loves.
In the decade plus since @Noihsaf.Bazaar locked in on Instagram, resale fashion sites have proliferated, but Noihsaf wasn’t standing still (they’ve since added men’s and kids fashion, home wares, and more). Now Noihsaf has shifted beyond Instagram into its own online platform of retail, resale, and (of course) community.
It’s here that Noihsaf stands apart from the online fashion crowd.
It’s rooted in Kate’s discerning eye as a curator – but she’s not just any curator. Kate is a curator who has lived her entire life thousands of miles from the fashion industry’s halls of power. She’s an outsider who is completely aware that most of her Duluthian neighbors don’t understand what she’s up to, while swaths of the NY/LA crowd are likewise perplexed that a girl from Duluth didn’t even bother to ask for permission to sit at the grown up table. She just went right ahead and built her own dining room and invited all the small-town (and suburban, and big city), new-at-school kids to come find themselves and each other.
The community Kate has built over the years, when contrasted with a social media landscape that has increasingly become the most toxic of comment sections, feels like more than just refreshing. It feels like the future.
The connections at Noihsaf are so strong, that basically the entire team that Kate has hired to help her execute her vision is made up of people who were community members first, drawn in by pieces they loved, and captured by the DNA of calm self-assurance that Kate has extracted from herself and forged in Noihsaf.
Head over to Noihsaf Bazaar and grab a limited edition MiiR x Noihsaf Bazaar Everywhere Water Bottle, complete with a handy splash guard sure to prevent you from drooling over the independent designer pieces you’re finding on Noihsaf. Available in three (striped!) colors.
Curious to learn how your brand can collaborate with MiiR? All MiiR drinkware is designed to help your brand shine – reach out to one of our team members today.
Want to learn more about why a bespoke stainless steel drinkware company went into the plastic water bottle world? Read our blog here.
