Emily Li Mandri’s first creative collaboration was with her grandmother—designing and sewing her prom dress. The two found just the right teal silk charmeuse together in the Garment District and the perfect pearl beads that would become the closure for the gown. “I still have it,” Li Mandri says.
The experience has been on her mind a lot lately, returning to the same Manhattan neighborhood a couple times each month to hunt for fabrics for her brand MLE, which offers “sustainably made statement accessories for the modern gentlewoman.” Think flowy clutches tied with a bow and satin scrunchies embellished with rhinestones. She also offers hair claws made of eco-friendly cellulose acetate, barrettes resembling baguettes, and jewelry named after goddesses.
Li Mandri’s newest collaboration is with the ever-thrifting fashionista Kym Chambers, founder of Chambers Vintage. The two recently opened a shop together, right in the heart of Saugerties.
A celebration and ribbon-cutting for MLE x Chambers Vintage, located at 228A Main Street, was held on April 12 and highly attended. “People were excited to finally see what we’d been working on,” Chambers says.
Li Mandri met Chambers at a pop-up event in the garden of nearby boutique Bosco’s Mercantile. The two creatives each had their own established ecommerce brand. Chambers, who came to Saugerties in 2021, also offered by-appointment shopping. Li Mandri, who moved to the town full-time in 2020, established a design studio at the coworking space 32 Partition.
Related
Chambers Vintage: Second-Hand Threads for the Contemporary Closet
Right away, Chambers made an impression. “I thought she was amazing,” Li Mandri recalled. “I liked her style and her personality. I wanted to get to know this person. I wanted to be her friend.”
Not long after, Chambers visited Li Mandri’s booth at the Field + Supply marketplace. “I loved her aesthetic,” Chambers says. “I loved that she had sustainability in mind and that it’s very womanist. And it’s all high-quality, handmade. Everything about it is everything I love.”
The two had a lot in common, in addition to their love of color, sense of whimsy, and dedication to making fashion eco-friendly. Both had earned degrees that no longer fit their career paths—and still found a way to pursue their passions.
Chambers majored in sociology at Western University in Ontario but brought her sewing machine along for the ride. “It came with me wherever I went,” she says.
A self-taught seamstress, Chambers was invited to feature her creations for a friend’s fashion show as a college sophomore. The following year, she designed her first collection. After graduation, she moved to London to work with fashion designers. She later returned to Canada, where she continued building a career in the industry, and eventually landed in New York, learning pattern-making, costume design and even leather making along the way.
Shortly after the birth of their son Noah, Chambers and her husband Deon Hamer discussed turning her infatuation with vintage into a full-time business venture. She asked, “Why don’t I open my own store online and see what happens?” He immediately agreed and has offered nonstop support ever since.
Meanwhile, Li Mandri was on the pre-med track at John Hopkins University. But the painter, who grew up in a family of tailors, seamstresses, and jewelers, yearned for a more creative outlet. The spring of her senior year, she learned silk screening on YouTube, bought all the necessary equipment, and transformed her bathroom into a workspace. “I’d be up all night silkscreening,” she recalls.
Before long, Li Mandri was selling out orders of t-shirts, and the effort turned into a full-time business after graduation. She started her own label Natty Paint and spent the next couple of years growing her brand, expanding into silkscreening and altering vintage clothing. She even started sending wholesale orders to Urban Outfitters and dressing musicians.
Li Mandri moved to New York City, earned an MBA at NYU Stern School of Business, and launched into advertising and digital marketing, working for a number of agencies. She wanted to apply what she had learned to her own business and launched MLE in 2018 out of her apartment.
Her first piece, named the “Gentlewoman’s Agreement,” went viral. The necklace features a clasp formed by a handshake. “It’s about women helping other women succeed,” she says. And that’s exactly what ended up evolving between Li Mandri and Chambers. First, they collaborated on a photoshoot, then a pop-up at Bosco’s Little Shop. “We had fun and we learned we could work together,” Chambers says.
The two daydreamed about opening a full-time store together, but it was just talk until the news arrived that Emerge Gallery was moving online. “We both looked at each other and were like, ‘That’s the space!’” Li Mandri recalls.
They signed a lease, and their landlord went to work renovating the space. Li Mandri’s husband Will Nainis and their friend Paul Cunzio built the curved platform that would sit under the custom clothing racks, made from rods bought Benson Steel in Saugerties and bent in-house using a hydrolic press. Nainis also constructed the curves for the archway to the changing room and helped Li Mandri refinish the jewelry case, a Facebook Marketplace find. “We all worked on refinishing the walls, skim coating, sanding, painting,” Li Mandri says.
The result is a cozy space with a luxury retail feel, complete with a deep red statement wall. “Everything has soft edges and warm colors,” Chambers says. “You kind of want to stay awhile when you enter the space.”
After all, that’s the whole idea, she explains. Shoppers can take their time exploring the racks for vintage treasures or peruse the purses, jewelry and accessories perched throughout the boutique.
“I’ve always known that I wanted a store,” Chambers says. “I always said I wanted a partner, but I was waiting for the right place, right time. This is it, and finding Emily was the right person.”
“The store is really an experiment for both of us,” Li Mandri added. “We’re already seeing its success and that people want something like this in Saugerties. Someone came in the other day and said, ‘I don’t have to go to the city to shop anymore.’ In that sense, we’ve won. It’s just a matter of continuing to grow.”
Chambers envisions the shop becoming a community gathering space and hosting events to benefit worthy causes. Creating Saugerties swag might also be on the agenda, and Chambers already features local women in her photoshoots.“There’s a lot of talent out here, there’s a lot of potential, and I want to show it,” she says. “That’s something we’re both really invested in.”
[location-1]
