Sophie Suzanne Blondeau Buhai is an American designer based in Los Angeles. She founded her namesake jewelry and accessories brand Sophie Buhai in 2015, and co-founded womenswear brand Vena Cava in 2003.

Career

In 2003, shortly after graduating from the School of Fashion at

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

, Buhai and her Parsons classmate Lisa Mayock launched Vena Cava with a loan of $5000. Both were working at vintage clothing stores at the time, and initially ran the business out of their Brooklyn apartments. Known for its eclectic style inspired by references ranging from early

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

to Biba, as well as for its hand-drawn prints, Vena Cava developed a cult following and became strongly associated with the independent New York fashion scene. The line was eventually carried by 120 stores internationally. In 2008, Vena Cava was awarded runner-up honors from the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. In 2015, Buhai launched her namesake jewelry line, known for its contemporary interpretations of sterling silver modernist jewelry, as well as seasonal collections incorporating gold and

semi-precious stones A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, an ...

. The collections also include hair accessories. Sophie Buhai is stocked by major retailers worldwide including

Matches Fashion MatchesFashion.com is a London-based clothing retailer. The business operates online and via three stores in London. History Tom Chapman and Ruth Chapman opened the first store in Wimbledon Village in 1987, and opened an online store in 2007. ...

, Net-A-Porter, Dover Street Market, SSENSE,

Moda Operandi Founded in 2010 by Lauren Santo Domingo and Áslaug Magnúsdóttir, Moda Operandi is an online luxury fashion retailer that allows customers to preorder looks directly from designers, immediately after their runway show. The concept, which was con ...

, and

Mytheresa Mytheresa is a German e-commerce luxury fashion company, with headquarters in Munich, Germany. Founded in 2006, it operates local-language based websites for international markets in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, Chinese and K ...

, as well as art and design institutions including the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Buhai's pieces are handmade by artisans in Los Angeles. The company's sustainability efforts include: utilizing recycled sterling silver and other materials sourced with an emphasis on environmental and social responsibility; a focus on local production; waste and carbon-footprint reduction efforts throughout the supply chain; and producing pieces primarily

made to order Build to Order (BTO: sometimes referred to as Make to Order or Made to Order (MTO)) is a production approach where products are not built until a confirmed order for products is received. Thus, the end consumer determines the time and number of ...

. From 2015 to 2017, Buhai also designed jewelry collections for the French fashion house Lemaire.

Early life and family

Buhai was born in Los Angeles. Her mother is a psychotherapist, and her father is a comedy writer. She is a fifth-generation Angeleno. Her great-great-grandfather was an early Hollywood resident who emigrated from France in the 1880s. Gertrude Stein is a cousin on her maternal grandfather's side. Buhai attended Marlborough School (Los Angeles) and was named a California Arts Scholar in high school. At age 18, she moved to New York City to study at the School of Fashion at

. Currently, Buhai lives in Los Angeles with her family.

References

Living people American fashion designers American jewelry designers Parsons School of Design alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Women jewellers {{US-fashion-bio-stub