C.O.C.A Style Designers: Vintage Royalty by Meena Osei

Created in 2008 by Meena Osei-
Kuffour (shown on right), VINTAGE ROYALTY specializes in earrings made of exclusive paper. Pondering the idea for quite a while, Meena says the earrings are made of paper with a vintage twist. "The idea of these earrings came to me over 4 years ago and I've finally decided on a consistent look for them," explained Meena. "The original earrings I made were inspired while working at my school's art gallery. I met an art student who had some cool paper from Japan and used it for other projects. I thought to myself, what else can you do with paper?"

According to Meena, she was so thrilled by the idea of the paper she immediately headed to the nearest fabric and paper stores. "I began experimenting with huge dangling earrings that were double-sided, but I didn’t receive a huge response from them so I went back to the drawing board," Meena says.

To her surprise, it was a friend and her thift store earrings, which gave Meena inspiration to continue designing. "My friend had on a pair of earrings from the thrift store that were huge and plastic and were the tackiest things you have ever seen. I loved them!!! Once I saw those I came back home and knew the direction I needed to go into," said Meena.

Now her VINTAGE ROYALTY jewelry direction is bold and bright, colorful and designed for indies who want to make a statement. When asked which avenue of inspiration she takes, Meena had this to say: They're always changing and I am currently looking into other mediums to mix with the paper. Other influences that I’ve included are different prints, paintings, inspirations from Marc Jacobs jewelry, and the people around me.



Want to know what's happening with VINTAGE ROYALTY by Meena? She's been lending her style creds in Newcity's latest Boutiqueville issue, her earrings will be sold through EmergingThoughts.com and I she plans on participating in more fashion shows and photo shoots.

Check out more VINTAGE ROYALTY and Meena @ Myspace and Facebook; for purchase inquiries visit www.vintageroyalty.etsy.com and custom orders email, vintageroyalty@gmail.com.